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Thoughtful strategic planning pays huge dividends for any organization that aspires to be healthy and enjoy sustainable growth. Clarity is essential. Everyone on your leadership team should be in alignment with your strategic direction. It’s hard enough to run a business even with everyone “on the same page.” It’s monumentally difficult and chaotic when words like “mission,” “vision” and “values” mean different things to different people.
Strategic planning pertains to being clear about who you are, what you do, who your customer is, where you are going, how you will get there, and when you will get there. With clarity around these questions, you give your firm a real chance at being highly disciplined and productive with every activity, task and initiative fully aligned with your strategic direction. A strategically disciplined advisory firm is like a well-written story with a tight plot line with no random characters or events.
Not surprisingly, there are a lot of resources available on strategic planning – books, articles and lectures – that are worth your time and effort. But sometimes proliferation begets confusion. Different words and labels get thrown around by executives and managers (and often by consultants, academics and writers) without regard to what they mean. This is certainly the case among owners and leaders of advisory firms.
I can clarify four oft-used terms listed below by defining them and providing examples.
- Core purpose
- Mission
- Vision
- (Core) values
Core purpose
Core purpose answers the question, “Why does our firm exist?” It has to do with why it’s worth doing what you do and why what you do matters. As David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett Packard, succinctly put, “[Core purpose] is like a guiding star on the horizon – forever pursued but never reached. Yet although purpose itself does not change, it does inspire change.”
Core purpose is frequently confused with vision. But it’s not vision.
Below are some examples of core purpose:
- Walt Disney: To make people happy.
- IKEA: To create a better everyday life for the many people.
- Southwest Airlines: To connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel.
Think of it as a single unifying principle that connects every one of your team members (including you) with the emotional aspirations of your clients.
Mission
Mission answers the question, “What business are we in?” Further, by extension, it also answers what business your firm isn’t in. While core purpose describes why you do what you do, mission describes what you do. Core purpose speaks to the heart while mission speaks to the mind. It provides focus and motivation to building and running your firm.
Many companies combine their core purpose and mission, and simply call it a mission. This is acceptable since they are two aspects of the same tenant. Confusing mission (or core purpose) with vision, however, is problematic because it will result in chaos in communications within the leadership team.
Some examples of mission are:
- Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.
- Warby Parker: To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially-conscious businesses.
- Southwest Airlines: Dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.
By Hoon Kang, read the full article here.
