Why does your team need a mission, vision, and strategy?

A mission, vision, and strategy are critical because they create unity and focus within an organization.

Often we only think of these at the company level, but creating a mission, vision, and strategy for your team can provide huge benefits.

What are they?

First, let’s define and differentiate each of these things. Mission, vision, and strategy all have different purposes.

Mission

This is your purpose. Your fundamental “why”. It answers the question of why your team exists and what you’re here to achieve. It’s foundational. Mission statements are timeless.

Some examples of company mission statements:

• Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
• LinkedIn: To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
• Nordstrom: To give customers the most compelling shopping experience possible.

Vision

This is your north star. Your aspirational “where”. It’s a compelling picture of the future you seek to create or what you aspire to be. It’s meant to be inspiring. Vision statements are time-bound, because once you achieve that future state, you will need to create a new vision.

Some examples of company mission statements:

• Google: To provide access to the world’s information in one click.
• LinkedIn: Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
• Disney: To be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information.

Strategy

This is your approach for how you plan to achieve your vision. What are the things you have to get right in order to make your vision a reality?

Strategies are key because without them, your vision statement is just an empty, unfulfilled statement. Strategies are what bring the vision to life. While the vision is more broad and aspirational, strategies should be more concrete, grounded, and actionable.

Conversely, building a strategy that isn’t anchored to a vision can be problematic as well. The vision provides a focus and a direction for the strategy.

Why do you need them?

Sure, it makes sense that a huge company like Google needs a mission, vision, and strategy. But why does your individual team need one? You might only have 5–10 people. Is it really worth spending time to create a mission, vision, and strategy? And what value does it provide, anyway?

I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first too. And for the first year that I was leading my team, I didn’t create any of these. It was only once my team expressed interest in understanding the vision for the team that I started creating them.

So, what value do they provide?

If you define them and communicate them clearly to your team, some of the benefits you’ll see include:

Mission

Your team will have a shared sense of purpose. They will have a better understanding of why they do the work they do every day. They can choose to commit to the mission.

Vision

Your team will understand where the team is headed. What the end goal is. What it’s all for. It provides focus and clarity. And they can determine if the future state vision of the team is a place they’re excited to be.

Strategy

Your team will understand what needs to be done to move the team forward. They’ll understand what role they can play in building the team and how they should prioritize. And they will have actionable steps to take.

How to create them?

If you’ve never created a mission, vision, and strategy before, it may feel intimidating. But don’t be afraid to get started! It doesn’t have to be perfect. And you can always evolve it as you go.

Get inspiration from examples

A simple Google search will provide you with a variety of examples of mission and vision statements from big name brands. Nike. Amazon. Ikea.

Obviously these companies’ mission and vision will be much broader than your team’s will. But it can help give you some ideas and a place to start.

Your company may have a defined and communicated mission, vision, and strategy as well. Make sure to not only take inspiration from it, but also ensure that yours is compatible with the company-wide content.

Ask yourself the key questions

The secret to a great brainstorm is to ask yourself the right questions. Here are some sample questions you can ask yourself:

Mission

• What is our purpose? Why do we exist?
• Who do we serve? What service do we deliver to our customers?

Vision

• Where are we going? What does the world look like when we get there?
• What are the challenges we are trying to address?
• What will our customers be able to do in the future that they can’t do now?

Strategy

• What do we need to get right to achieve our vision?
• What are the most impactful things we can do to move the needle?
• What resources do we need to get to our desired end state?

Involve your team members

As the team leader, you should begin the brainstorm and come to the table with a strong point of view. However, once you’ve defined some light guardrails, engage your team to develop the details and crystallize the final version.

Engaging your team members provides two key benefits:

1. Provides additional perspective and insights, beyond your own, and a sounding board to ensure it resonates.
2. Increases buy-in from your team members, who will be far more likely to support a mission, vision, and strategy that they helped to develop.

In my experience, this can be a great team-building activity. Even those who are newer to the team or have fewer inputs will benefit from hearing the discussion.

My BizOps team created a new vision and strategy once a year, typically in January, to help everyone focus on the priorities for the upcoming year. Here’s a previous example of our BizOps mission, vision, and strategy:

So give it a try! It’s a simple exercise that can take your team to the next level.

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