What is example of mission and vision?

Mission, vision and values statements serve as the foundation for an organization’s strategic plan. They convey the purpose, direction and underlying values of the organization. When developed and implemented in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, these statements can serve as powerful tools that provide organizations with meaningful guidance, especially under times of rapid change. Consequently, taking the time to craft relevant mission, vision and value statements should be carefully considered.

To get started, please review our tips in the article below on how to write good mission, vision and values statements. To go deeper, download our full compiled list of 100 sample mission, vision and values statements by providing your contact information in the form below. Be sure to check out our how-to video where we walk through the creation process step-by-step! Finally, please submit a quote request if you'd like a proposal from Bâton Global to help you create your own Mission, Vision and Values statements!

The mission statement defines an organization’s purpose or reason for being. It guides the day-to-day operations of the organization, communicates to external stakeholders the core solutions the organization provides in society and motivates employees toward a common near-to-medium term goal. In short, the mission statement paints a picture of who the company is and what the company does.

A good mission statement should only focus on what is most important to the organization. It should be brief, clear, informative, simple and direct. It should avoid elaborate language, clichés, and generalizations and it should emphasize outcomes and the people the organization is serving.

When writing a mission statement, consider the following questions:

• What do we do today?
• Who do we serve?
• What are we trying to accomplish?
• What impact do we want to achieve?

Examples:

• LinkedIn: To connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.
• Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
• Twitter: To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, instantly, without barriers.
• TripAdvisor: To help people around the world plan and have the perfect trip.
• Tesla: To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy.
• Sweetgreen: To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.

Best Practices Video
Bâton Global's shares our secrets learned from helping organizations worldwide write winning Mission, Vision and Value statements.

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Vision Statements

The vision statement describes the future of the organization. It reveals what the company aspires to be or hopes to achieve in the long-term. The vision statement is inspirational and motivational but also provides direction, mapping out where the organization is headed. In this regard, it serves as a guide for choosing current and future courses of action.

An effective vision statement should be concise, unambiguous, futuristic, realistic, aspirational and inspirational. It shouldn’t be generic but rather focus on outcomes specific to the organization.

 When writing a vision statement, consider these questions:

• Where are we going moving forward?
• What do we want to achieve in the future?
• What kind of future society do we envision?

Examples:

• LinkedIn: To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
• GoDaddy: To radically shift the global economy toward independent entrepreneurial ventures.
• Wikimedia Foundation: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment.
• Habitat for Humanity: A world where everyone has a decent place to live.
• SouthwestAirlines: To be the world’s most loved, most efficient, and most profitable airline.

Values Statements

The values statement highlights an organization’s core principles and philosophical ideals. It is used to both inform and guide the decisions and behaviors of the people inside the organization and signal to external stakeholders what’s important to the company. An organization’s core values shape daily culture and establish standards of conduct against which actions and decisions can be assessed.

A values statement should be memorable, actionable and timeless. The format of the values statement depends on the organizations; some organizations use one, two or three words to describe their core values while others provide a short phrase.

 When drafting a values statement, some questions to consider include:

• What do we stand for?
• What behaviors do we value over all else?
• How will we conduct our activities to achieve our mission and vision?
• How do we treat members of our own organization and community?

Examples:

Gusto:

• Ownership mentality.
• Don’t optimize for the short term.
• We are all builders.
• Go the extra mile.
• Do what’s right.
• Be transparent.

Etsy:

• We commit to our craft.
• We minimize waste.
• We embrace differences.
• We dig deeper.
• We lead with optimism.
  

Summary

The mission, vision, and values statements are the guiding forces behind an organization. The mission statement communicates the purpose of the organization. The vision statement provides insight into what the company hopes to achieve or become in the future. The values statement reflects the organization’s core principles and ethics. Together, these statements provide strategic direction for an organization, informing current and future business strategies.

Learn how Bâton Global supports organizations in building lasting and impactful core commitments here.

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‍Download 100 Examples

Interested in viewing examples from other organizations? Download our collection of of 100 mission, vision, and value statements below: 

‍There's an art and science to writing core purposes statements and Bâton Global has helped numerous organizations worldwide write their winning statements. Complete the quote request below if you would like a proposal on how we can assist you.

Other Helpful Resources

365 Careers, January 26, 2018,The mission, vision and values statements [video file].

Bain & Company, April 2, 2018, Mission and vision statements.

Diffen LLC, n.d., Mission statement vs. vision statement.

Paula Fernandes, May 4, 2018, What is a vision statement?

Linda Le Phan, April 12, 2018, How to define your company’s core values (37 experts share their advice) [blog].  

William A. Nelson & Paul B. Gardent, March/April 2011, "Organizational values statements," Healthcare Executive, 56-59.

Edward L. Powers, 2012, "Organizational mission statement guidelines revisited," International Journal of Management & Information Systems, 16(4), 281-290.

Britt Skrabanek, August 19, 2018, Difference between vision and mission statements: 25 examples.

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Imagine going to work each day, full of purpose and conviction. You strongly believe in your organization's values, and you are passionately committed to its mission.

Because you understand the good that your organization does in the world, you love what you do. You're happy to come into the office, and you put your heart and soul into your work, because you know it matters.

People can be genuinely inspired if their organization has a compelling vision and a clear, worthwhile mission; and these can be powerfully expressed in well-crafted mission and vision statements.

Click here to view a transcript of this video.

These statements can be highly motivating when they are expressed clearly and with intent, and when they are communicated effectively to everyone in your organization. They also express your organization's purpose to customers, suppliers and the media, on whom they can have the same effect.

In this article, we'll explore how to create motivating mission and vision statements.

Mission and Vision Statements Explained

These statements are the words leaders use to explain an organization's purpose and direction. When expressed clearly and concisely, they can motivate your team, or the organization as a whole, with an inspiring vision of the future.

The two statements do distinctly different jobs:

Purpose

Mission statements define your organization's purpose and its primary objectives. They are set in the present tense, and explain why you exist as a business, both to members of your organization and to people outside it. Mission statements tend to be short, clear and powerful.

Vision statements also define your organization's purpose, but they focus on its goals and aspirations. These statements are designed to be uplifting and inspiring. They're also timeless: even if the organization changes its strategy, the vision will often stay the same.

Application

Usually, people write these statements for an organization, or for an organizational unit or a team. You can also create statements to define the goals of long-term projects or initiatives.

Examples

Some examples of Mission Statements are shown below:

• Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (pharmaceuticals) – "To discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases."
• Walgreens (drugstores) – "Champion the health and well-being of every community in America."
• Nike (sportswear) – "To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world."
• The Dow Chemical Company (chemicals) – "Become the most innovative, customer-centric, inclusive and sustainable Materials Science Company in the world.
• Amazon (online retail) – "Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company."

Some examples of Vision Statements are shown below:

• PepsiCo (retail) – "Be the global leader in convenient foods and beverages by winning with purpose."
• Amnesty International (nonprofit) – "Our vision is a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments."
• Ikea (retail) – "To create a better everyday life for the many people – for customers, but also for our co-workers and the people who work at our suppliers."
• The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) (nonprofit) – "The vision of the ASPCA is that the United States is a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness."

These examples are concise, focused and inspiring. Do everything you can to make your statements similarly succinct – long, rambling statements can be difficult to decipher and lead to confusion.

How to Create a Mission Statement

To develop your mission statement, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Develop Your Winning Idea

First, identify your organization's "winning idea," or unique selling proposition (USP). This is the idea or approach that makes your organization stand out from its competitors, and it is the reason that customers come to you and not your competitors.

Step 2: Clarify Your Goal

Next, make a short list of the most important measures of success for your winning idea.

For instance, if it is to create cutting-edge products in a particular industry, how will you know when you've accomplished this goal? If your idea is to provide excellent customer service, what key performance indicator will let you know that your customers are truly satisfied?

You don't have to include exact figures here, but it's important to have a general idea of what success looks like, so that you know when you've achieved it.

Combine your winning idea and success measures into a general, but measurable goal. Refine the words until you have a concise statement that expresses your ideas, measures and a desired result.

Keep this statement in the present tense, and make sure it is short, simple, clear, and free of jargon. Yes, the language needs to be inspiring, but don't include adjectives just so it "sounds better."

Example 1

Produce store Farm Fresh Produce's winning idea is to "provide farm freshness." The owner identifies two key measures of the company's success: freshness and customer satisfaction. She creates the following mission statement, which combines the winning idea and her measures of success:

"To be the number one produce store in Main Town by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce directly from farm to customer, with high customer satisfaction."

Example 2

Carl has just become the leader of a new team. The team will focus on one key project: streamlining the organization's internal databases, so that the entire system runs smoothly and without problems.

With this in mind, Carl creates a mission statement to guide his team's understanding of their purpose:

"Our team's goal is to streamline our organization's database management system within 12 months. We will develop a new system that is easy to use and reduces the frequency of user errors."

How to Create a Vision Statement

Step 1: Find the Human Value in Your Work

First, identify your organization's mission. Then uncover the real, human value in that mission. For example, how does your organization improve people's lives? How do you make the world a better place?

Our articles on working with purpose and The Triple Bottom Line include tips that you can use to find the deeper meaning in what you do.

Step 2: Distill Into Values

Next, identify what you, your customers and other stakeholders value the most about how your organization will achieve this mission. Distill these into values that your organization has, or should have.

Some examples of values include excellence, integrity, teamwork, originality, equality, honesty, freedom, service, and strength.

If you have a hard time identifying your organization's values, talk to your colleagues and team members. What values do they think the organization stands for, or that it should stand for?

Step 3: Combine Your Mission and Values

Combine your mission and values, and polish your words until you have an inspiring statement that will energize people, inside and outside your organization.

It should be broad and timeless, and it should explain why the people in your organization do what they do.

Example 1

The owner of Farm Fresh Produce examines what she, her customers and her employees value about her mission.

The four most important values that she identifies are freshness, healthiness, tastiness, and the "local-ness" of the produce. Here's the vision statement that she creates and shares with employees, customers and farmers alike:

"We encourage the families of Main Town to live happier and healthier lives by providing the freshest, tastiest, and most nutritious local produce from local farms to their table."

Example 2

Carl looks at the values that are key to achieving his team's goal, and considers their mission statement. He identifies several important values, such as challenge, dependability and teamwork. He then creates this statement that combines his team's mission and values:

"We will challenge our skills and abilities, and create a database system that's strong, dependable and intuitive, allowing our colleagues to work quickly and effortlessly."

Mission and vision statements are concise, inspiring statements that clearly communicate the direction and values of an organization.

These statements can powerfully explain your intentions, and they can motivate your team or organization to realize an inspiring vision of the future.

When writing them, make sure that you understand your organization's USP, or "winning idea." You'll also need to clarify your organization's values, and distill them into statements that are concise, engaging and uplifting.