3 techniques to define the mission, vision and values

• What do we do to be what we want to be?
• What do we want to be?
• What is so important to us that we are not going to give it up?

The opposite of uncertainty is certainty. One way to achieve this is to be faithful to the pillars that define who we are in essence, where we are going and where we want to go. These dimensions apply both to personal and professional human development, and to companies and organizations of all kinds.

In dizzying times and with constant changes, remembering the mission, vision and values becomes a strategic action so as not to lose our way. In order for us to continue evolving as individuals and teams, it is essential to clarify these key aspects that reinforce commitment, responsibility and the willingness to cooperate in a better way.

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In those cases where they are not clear, the course will be erratic, and not infrequently it ends in the worst way: making a business disappear, and even when a person feels that they have lost the meaning of life.

Because they are important?

Sustaining the mission, vision and values and sharing them with the entire organization, and even seeing if they are personally concordant - which will provoke greater involvement - is the challenge of innovative, creative and challenging organizations.

^{Image: Joshua Earle via Unsplash}

These three pillars are transversal to everything we are, what we feel and what we do. Even if you are not aware of them, they are revealed and lived on a daily basis, since they are part of the corporate culture, habits and conscious and unconscious rituals.

I have assisted in improving many companies that could not detect serious deviations in the performance of their businesses, and in a short time we concluded that they had departed from their mission, vision and values.

Techniques to define the Mission, Vision and Values

Here the subject is focused on the business and organizational world. You can replicate these guidelines in your individual personal and professional life.

There are businesses that do not know well what their main activity is, that is, what need they are satisfying in the market, and why they seek to be successful in their segment. Driven by impulse -even when they must write the texts for their website, for example-, they remember the mission, vision and values, and declare these aspects in a simple way, without flight, motivation; lacking inspiration and challenges that limit their development.

Other times they commission an outsider to define it, and this is a mistake, because no one can better define these pillars than the people who are part of the company. So we read daily very beautiful texts, attractively ornamented, although lacking in sustenance and reality.

The contrast is much greater when you enter a company and see the “Mission, Vision and Values” poster displayed in full color ... and in many cases everything collapses when they make you wait a long time in line, or the person you are you were going to see your interview was not scheduled, or the processing of a payment was misplaced and there is no one to take charge, or no one responds to the complaints in the email enabled for this purpose ... Does it sound familiar?

Let's look at some definitions to achieve a mission and vision statement with the appropriate focus, based on your business strengths and differentials:

With the help of the expert Alejandra Brandolini and her team from AB Comunicaciones, with whom we wrote the book " How to handle internal communication " published together with the newspaper Clarín de Argentina in a massive way, I invite you to review these concepts:

• An aviation organization does not operate airplanes, it transports people.
• A company that makes cosmetics does not sell vitamin blends for the skin, but sells beauty, youth, and prestige.

This means that what the company does and what it says it does, marks the distance that must be approached in communication.

Regarding the vision, it means transmitting an apparently impossible future state at present, which is sufficiently motivating and challenging for the members of the company, and which gives meaning and direction to its existence.

^{Image: Austin Distel via Unsplash}

To define your Mission: answer the question "What do we do to be what we want to be?"

It is the reason why the company exists, and what it wants to do to be useful to its audiences (clients, staff, competitors and the community, for example). In practice, it guides staff and partners about the focus of the business and is the “glue” that holds the organization together.

To define your Vision: "What do we want to be?"

It must be reflected in such a way that this mental image can be visualized; Start from a realistic objective, although not easily achievable, and define the north towards which you are pointing. In turn, it invites transformation, and communicates what you want to become.

To find your Values "What is so important to us that we are not going to give it up?"

In other words, it is an irreplaceable force that defines the way we do business, provide services, hire people, and carry out all our activities from start to finish. Values are closely linked to behaviors that define the way of acting. In values-based leadership, they are basic principles to be followed and fulfilled by all the people involved, without exception. Their weight is worth in concrete actions, that is, they are ratified by exercising them on a day-to-day basis and not "twisting" them or modifying them according to situations.

^{Image: Alex Kotliarskyi via Unsplash}

Some values may be: doing things with excellence always and at all times; exceed the customer's expectation; practice constant innovation; continuous improvement; respect, equality, equity, diversity; transform mistakes into learning; ethical conduct at the service of the business.

The Mission, Vision and Values is not a set of empty words to fill a space, but they make up the DNA of the business and it could be said that when each person has it “tattooed” in their spirit, there, just there, you will be in the good way.

And you, do you have defined your Mission, Vision and Personal Values and in your company?

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