In a past life, as a technology business owner, one of my colleagues made a real effort to get us to develop mission and vision statements. I am embarrassed to say that I rebelled and poisoned the entire session. I was aghast at the prospect of my innovative entrepreneurial baby being branded by some bland mindless prose.

We have all seen appalling mission statements. They usually end up being flowery gibberish about valuing customers, or employees, or shareholders, or everyone and blah blah blah.The truth is, they are (or should be) quite central to strategic planning, and their crafting usually both precedes and follows in depth strategic analysis. They can be quite hard to create if you want them to have real meaning.

It is worth the effort, however, and your inability to create these statements is a red flag that your strategy has not been refined and may not be actionable. Continue reading →