Mission and vision

What a mission and a vision are

A mission statement says what the business commits to doing and for whom. A vision statement describes the state of the market, the sector or the community the business is working toward. Both are short, both are usually written badly, and both are subject to the same test.

The test is falsifiability. Write the opposite of your statement. If the opposite is something no organisation would ever say — “we aim to deliver poor service to customers we do not understand” — then your statement carries no information and is worth nothing. A mission is only a commitment if a competitor could honestly write a different one, and if breaking it would be visible.

These are not a value proposition, which is written for a buyer, and they are not a brand story, which looks backwards at a decision already made. Mission and vision look forward, and they are mostly read by people inside the organisation or by people assessing it.

Who needs these, and who does not

Most small businesses do not. A twelve-person firm with a clear proposition and an owner who makes the decisions has no gap that a mission statement fills, and hanging one on the wall changes nothing. If that is your situation I will say so on the first call and decline the work. I would rather sell you nothing than sell you a framed sentence.

There are three cases where these genuinely earn their cost.

• Grant and funding applications. Funders ask for a mission and read it against the rest of the application. A vague one costs marks, and an unfalsifiable one reads as a form filled in rather than an organisation with a purpose.
• A board or an outside investor. Once decisions are made by people who are not in the building every day, the mission becomes the thing arguments are settled against. It has to be specific enough to rule options out.
• Hiring at any scale. Past roughly thirty staff you stop being able to explain the point of the place to every new person yourself. The statement is what does it in your absence, and it will be judged by whether the place behaves as if it is true.

What goes in them

A mission of one sentence, usually under twenty-five words, naming who is served, what is committed to, and the boundary. The boundary is what makes it falsifiable: what the organisation will not do, or will not serve, or will give up to keep the commitment.

A vision of one or two sentences describing a condition that could be checked in five or ten years. Not a feeling. Something a sceptic could look at and say whether it had happened.

Underneath both, on the same page, three decisions the statements would settle. If nobody can name three, the statements are not doing work and I will say so before we go further. Alongside that sits the failed draft: the version that reads well and is not falsifiable, kept as the example of what was rejected and why, because somebody always proposes it again.

What you get

The mission. One sentence, with the opposite written directly underneath it so anyone can see the test being passed.

The vision. One or two sentences, with the date by which it would be checkable and a line on what would count as having reached it.

The decisions page. Three real decisions in front of the organisation, each with what the statements say about it. This is the page that proves the statements are not decoration.

The rejected drafts. Three or four, with the reason each failed. Usually the reason is that the opposite was absurd.

A one-hour session. With the owner, the board or the leadership group, arguing the statements against real decisions rather than approving them politely.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A not-for-profit trades training society with nine staff is preparing three funding applications and has a mission that reads “to empower individuals to reach their full potential”. The opposite is absurd, so the sentence is worth nothing, and two of the four board members privately disagree about who the society is actually for.

The recorded session settles it. The mission becomes a commitment to move adults who have been out of work for more than a year into apprenticeships in three named trades, within the province, and to take no cohort it cannot place. A competitor society could honestly write a different one, and breaking the placement commitment would be visible in the annual figures. The vision describes a condition: no apprenticeship in those three trades in the region left unfilled for want of a candidate. The decisions page then settles the three arguments in front of the board, including whether to accept a funded stream for recent school leavers, which the mission rules out. The old sentence stays in the file marked rejected, with the reason.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. Who is asking for these, what they will be used for, and whether you need them. This is where I decline the work if you do not. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Scope, who takes part, and the price agreed before anything starts.
3. Reading and interviews. Your existing material, any funding applications or board papers, and recorded conversations with two to four people who make decisions. About a week.
4. Drafts and the falsifiability test. Three or four candidate missions and two visions, each with its opposite written out. Sent before the session, so people arrive having already argued with them.
5. The session and delivery. The one-hour session, then the final statements, the decisions page and the rejected drafts within three working days.

Two to three weeks from first call to final statements, longer where a board meets monthly.

What it costs

Quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call, agreed in writing, and not changed without your agreement. The price depends on how many people take part and whether a board session is needed. If the first call shows you do not need these, there is nothing to quote and I will tell you what to spend the money on instead. The pricing page explains how fixed pricing works.

What happens next

Organisations writing funding applications usually need the fixed-length descriptions next, which is boilerplate descriptions in the 50, 100 and 200-word versions that get asked for constantly. Where the statements were written for hiring, they have to appear on the careers page and be filtered through it honestly. And where the point of the place still needs explaining to a customer rather than a funder, the brand story does that job better. This piece of work is complete on its own, and nothing further is assumed.