In a world of business, the process of defining your organization’s Mission Statement, Vision Statement and Value Set can be a valuable exercise that will force you and your leadership team to ask the harder questions about your organization. The goal of this SlideShare is to get your started,

1. The Mission, Vision, Values Exercise
By Chris Gostling – MomentumVisual Inc - 2016

2. Some people say the most
memorable ways to deepen
your understanding, and
challenge your commitment to a
relationship, is to move in
together or to go camping.
For some people this ends in a
disconnected disaster, and for
others it can leave them better
for the experience.

3. Asking Harder Questions
In a world of business, the comparable “character building”
experiences are completing an RFP for a government contract, or
going through the process of defining your organization’s Mission
Statement,Vision Statement andValue Set.
Both are exercises that force you and your leadership team to ask
the harder questions about your organization.

4. I don't recommend anyone actually participating in an RFP
process unless it's absolutely necessary. I do however
strongly recommend anyone running an organization to go
exercise of defining Mission & Vision Statements and a Value
(M/V/V) before making any new significant business plans.
One of the key insights that is gained from defining your M/V/V is a
clear WHY to support "Why are we running this business?"
Why Does Your Organization Operate?

5. But you haven't done the exercise yet, and here are a few
good(ish) reasons why not:
• You're too busy kicking ass and taking names
• You don't really believe in what you doing
• You wouldn't want to share this information with your audience
• You don't know where start
So Many Reasons Not To Do It

6. The first reason can become a perpetual perspective, you will not make time
for anything thinking like that.
The second is missed opportunity to adjust your company's path to a freshly
defined Mission, Vision & Value Set. One that you can actually stand behind
in front of.
The third exists as a misconception more than anything. Your Mission
statement and your Vision statement and your Value set are just
yours. They're not the reason why people believe in your product or
service, they're the reason you do.
Getting Past Excuses

7. I professionally don't believe the Mission statement needs to be a consumer
facing communication piece.Why would people care about the reason why
you're doing this for you?
People want to know why you're doing for them | which is different.
Crafted for the targeted audience of an organization, a Global Facing
Statement stems from the intentions behind the Mission/Vision/Values, but has
the public's interests in mind first.We will come back to this later.
Internal Vs External Statements

8. Let’s focus on the fourth and more
common reason why you haven't
done a Mission,Vision,Values
exercise for your organization
I don't know where to start

9. A Few Things To Consider
• There’s only value in doing this exercise if you’re going to be honest with your
intentions and your organizations current state of operation.
• Don’t get hung up on finding exactly the right words, or for that matter, how
to say it in five words or less. If your business isn’t professional writing, don’t
stress about trying to find epic words. Even if it is, don't. Remember you are
doing this for your organization and it's stakeholders.
• You should be able to say your Mission statement out loud, calmly with the
confidence of someone who believes in the sentiment behind it.
• Your Mission/Vision/Values should represent the best version of your
organization.
• It shouldn’t sound false or deceptive, like you’re trying to trick someone.This
isn’t supposed to be a loop hole clause.

10. This should be the (reasonably) well
articulatedWHY you are in business.

11. Vision vs Mission
Vision Statement:
• Emotionally charged
• Generally an inspiring tone
• Well it speaks to your present state it also speaks to your future state
• Probably doesn’t include a lot of specific executable details
• This is a reason to get up in the morning statement
• This can also be successfully used as the rallying cry shared and
when work is slow or challenging.

12. Vision vs Mission
Mission Statement:
• What you do for whom and if I position on either why you
it or how you doing
• It should speak to your standards and should feel unique
• This is the plan that represents your organizations realistic
and ideal operating mode. Literally like a mission.

13. Common Writing Challenges
• Getting too particular about specific words. It only needs to make sense.
• There is accurate and encompassing, and then there is too specific.There’s also vague, and
general and ambiguous. If your statements and values are too general, you are missing the
details that make your organization unique.
• There is an analogy about a frog and a pot of water that is slowly heated, and it refers to our
ability to ignore changes if they are small enough. I bring this up because it is very easy to find a
path early on that seems safe and never looking back until it is two weeks later and the results
are totally off message. If you find progress, push it to a point, and then start fresh with a
different direction. Do this a half dozen times.The right approach will stand out.

14. Staying On Track
Create groups of useful "base line" reference information to start with:
• What you do - Speak to the industry in which your organization serves
• For whom do you do it - How are all of your customers connected?This can be a great way of
describing them as one collective audience.
• The WHY you do it, for the HOW you doing –This is where you have the opportunity to be
unique this is the fingerprint I don’t imagine your company’s mission is to be exactly the same as
everyone else, going to business to be graded it or at least be better than most of the things you
seen it there this element of the mission statement his closest peace to your vision statement.

15. Regroup
1. Value Set - Bullet List | Leverage-able Common Themes
2. Vision Statement - Emotive | Future-State Inspired | Rally Cry
3. Mission Statement - What You Do For Whom | Unique | Current-State Proud
• Keep it honest, easy to understand
• Be just specific enough
• Make it unique to your business

16. A Good Place To Start
Value Prompts:
• Bullet list of things you believe in that relate directly to the service you offer
• The work involved in doing your service (or making your product)
• The relationship between the people that do the work, and your org.
• The relationship between the people that use what you do, and your org.
• The impact you have on the community/economy that are affected by your service
From here you can probably highlight some key words that stand out on your list. These
These "themes" probably will even repeat. The recurring concepts should exist and support the
support the development of your two internal statements.

17. A Good Place To Start
Mission Prompts:
• Without addressing the problem that you solve, what is the simplest way to
explain the service or product offering that you represent
• Describe the audience you serve, as a demographic. Don't focus on what you
think they think about your organization or offering. If you have more than
distinct demographic, keep writing. Realistically there will be a way to define
your entire audience in one way. It will come from really understanding ALL of
your audiences and finding commonalities between them.
• What problem does your service or product offering solve?
• Why does this problem exist?
• Why doesn't this problem affect your organization?

18. A Good Place To Start
Vision Prompts:
• What is your favourite part of what your organization does?
• Is this "favourite part" a driving force behind your organization's focus
• If not, what are the driving forces behind your organizations focus
• Of these, what are the most important ones?
• If you look at the "need" your organization fulfills, what would be your goal
related to fulfilling the need?

19. Closing Thoughts
I have not shared any formatting recommendations for any of these three key
perspectives. The goal is to have the best content, and the format will find itself.
You will hopefully learn a lot about your organization and the perspectives of
the stakeholders. This is also a highly shareable piece of communication for staff in
new hires to give a clear overview on the company they are going to be working for.
Cheers | Chris Gostling | CEO | MomentumVisual Inc