Critique and enhancement of vision statements
As part of my ongoing quest to become better at defining product vision statements I took a look at what’s already out there. In particular products or company that are deemed successful, making the assumption that a great vision statement correlates with a successful company. I took each of these statements, did a brief analysis of it and an idea of how I might improve on the existing version.
Also some of the companies did not publish a classic vision statement, or in some cases mission statements. I found the exercise very valuable in terms of thinking about the scope and what it includes and excludes as possible solutions. Let me know your thoughts — do you agree or disagree with my assessment, and my enhanced versions? What would you do differently?
HUBSPOT
To make the world Inbound. We want to transform how organizations attract, engage and delight their customers.
What does inbound mean to somebody outside of marketing? How does it make the world a better place?
The piece about attract, engage and delight customers is more solid though. It is specific yet lofty and aspirational.
Questionable is the piece about transforming the way organizations do things. It does not answer a WHY, or define a WHY. Change requires a purpose and that is not evident here.
Enhanced:
Make marketing delightful for both vendor and customer through engaging and human-like conversations that are bidirectional.
Our vision is to create a satisfying marketing experience for both vendors and customers.
IKEA
Our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people.
It is very broad as a better everday life could and should result in solutions outside their traditional furnishing space. It makes a statement about limiting the target group — with many people it is still a very large group, but they do not target everybody. It is inspirational for all staff levels from the furniture designer to the person in the store stacking shelves — how could they make life better for their customers? Taken a step further it can also mean making life better for their employees. The only somewhat negative aspect is the lack of focus on the home. Everyday life also includes the place of work (yes do the furniture for offices), going to work (they brought out a bike), going on vacation, entertainment, sports and recreation. Perhaps a slightly tighter version of this could look like this:
Our vision is to create a better everyday home life for many people.
Asana
We’re empowering teams to do great things together.
It is clear for who it is (teams) yet teams itself is very broad already — it could be a football team, a local community committee or a professional office team. Great things is aspirational in nature, and empowering is a great enabler. Together is an important key element that highlights the collaborative spirit. The solution could be very broad — a project management tool is just one possibility.
It is more of a mission statement what Asana does, rather than what a future state looks like.
Enhanced:
A world where teams can achieve their collective best.
Qlik
Qlik was founded on one simple belief — Business Intelligence (BI) is optimized by harnessing human intelligence, the collective intelligence of people. We believe that data is nothing more than a source, and that BI, analytics tools and technologies are only as effective as those that use them. That’s why we’ve built a new breed of visual analytics solutions — to bring out the best in the people that use them.
Simply put, our focus is to amplify human intelligence.
First it is clearly way too long (assuming that this is truly their vision statement and they don’t have another internal one that is more focused). It describes their values and beliefs and the history which is useful to some extent but too long to read and memorise. It is too narrow and with Business intelligence and analytics tools and technologies too solution oriented. However the last sentence almost nails it and should probably sit on its own.
Enhanced:
A world where answering hard questions becomes easier by amplifying human intelligence.
General Electric
To become the world’s premier digital industrial company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive.
In addition to this corporate vision statement, GE specifies that these machines and solutions are for “executing critical outcomes for our customers.”
It is very inward looking about what GE wants to achieve (become #1). It is also more about the solutions (software-defined machines, connected, …) than the problems it is trying to solve. Now that still makes for a very broad area of where this might apply but while aspirational I would argue many would not find inspiration in it. The statement is very descriptive of what the parameters for solutions should look like. Unlike the previous organisations GE is a different type both in terms of the products they offer and their history. Perhaps they need a tighter statement to be better aligned with their culture. Nevertheless they could do a better job in focusing on customers rather than becoming #1. It also has the element of transforming something (industry) without an evident reason for it. Arguably their breadth of spaces they operate (Energy, Transportation, Aviation, additive manufacturing, Lighting, Healthcare).
Enhanced:
A world where devices serve humans to have a better life and organisations can achieve better outcomes.
Looker
Mission: To inspire everyone to embrace their curiosity, dig deeper and keep asking questions.
While it is a mission statement rather than a vision it goes in that direction. It is aspirational and broad, although perhaps too broad. Using a moniker like IKEA to address many opposed to everyone would allow for a sharper distinction. It is impossible to make everyone happy so conscious tradeoffs must be made which are harder when the vision or mission includes everyone. Another criticism is around the action or behavior they desire. Obviously curiosity and asking questions are desirable but especially in the business context they ought to have an outcome. They are not purely for academic research or sheer pleasure. Even children’s curiosuity serves a purpose as that is how they and in fact we all learn. It might be implied but it helps to make it explicit.
Enhanced:
Everyone can get meaningful and insightful answers to their questions.
This is outcome focused, and it also includes everyone not many. Why you ask? Everyone has questions, not everyone will have answers, but some will act as the providers of answers, but when thinking of the outcome everyone should be able to get an answer.
Tableau
Mission: Tableau helps people see and understand data.
Our vision is empowering people to answer their own questions from data, whether they are a doctor, scientist, video game designer, business analyst, or executive. To do this we need to develop products that don’t require expertise in SQL, statistics, graphic design, perception, or visualization. We work to build this expertise into our products for you.
The vision statement is rather long and therefore obviously not catchy or memorable. It is also specific but in the details of how it should be understood, such as the different roles that they’d assume would use their tools. As such it would be a good explanation and talk track when discussing the vision with employees and customers alike. It captures the problem that most knowledge workers face in that they need answers from data but don’t have the hitherto required skills.
Enhanced:
All knowledge workers can answer their own questions from available data (without acquiring classic data skills first).
This is broad although limited to a wider group of people, it talks about the outcome and finally it addresses the prevalent problem.
