AchieveIt White Paper: The Link Between Mission, Vision, and Strategy

This white paper, presented by AchieveIt, delves into the crucial relationship between a company's mission, vision, and strategy, emphasizing their alignment for successful strategic planning. It begins by defining the mission statement as the fundamental purpose of an organization and the vision statement as a future-oriented aspiration, highlighting their role as the starting point and destination, respectively, for strategic planning. The paper underscores the importance of values in guiding strategy and tactics, ensuring alignment with the organization's core principles. It provides examples of mission statements and explains that great mission statements focus on why an organization exists, not its products or services. The paper then details the significance of a vision statement in inspiring and guiding strategic and operational planning. It also defines organizational values as critical traits that define how people behave within the organization. The paper concludes by promoting AchieveIt's software as a tool for organizing and tracking business initiatives to improve strategic planning and execution.

WHITE PAPER 9001 || PAGE 1
www.achieveit.com Execute Smarter. Faster. Better.
The fundamental purpose of
strategic planning is to align a
company’s mission with its vision.
Without mission and vision, the
plan exists in a vacuum, as the
mission is the starting point
for planning, the vision is the
destination, and the strategic
plan is the roadmap that helps
you navigate from one to the
other. Values are also important
to the strategic planning
process as they provide the
organization with a touchstone
for developing appropriate
strategies and tactics; if any
strategy or tactic is in opposition
to the company’s values, then
it should be reconsidered.
Even if your organization already
has well-defined mission, vision,
and values statements, you
should review them throughout
the strategic planning process.
Don’t assume that every member
of your strategic planning team
can articulate your mission,
vision, and values – especially if
some of these team members are
relatively new to the organization;
you need to ensure that they
are current, resonate with key
stakeholders, and provide a
firm foundation for planning.
If such statements don’t exist –
or they need to be revised and
updated – invest whatever time
is necessary to create mission,
vision, and values statements that
can provide a powerful framework
for strategy development. If
your mission, vision, and values
statements aren’t up to the task,
then it will minimize the likelihood
of your strategic plan succeeding.
Mission
A mission statement is a brief
description of the organization’s
fundamental purpose. A
mission statement answers the
question, “Why do we exist?” For
instance, the mission statement
of LibertyHealth in Jersey City,
NJ, is, “We enhance life.” The
mission statement of Memorial
Health in Savannah, GA, is, “With
compassion, we heal, teach, and
discover.” As you see from these
examples from urban teaching
hospitals, mission statements are
as varied as the organizations
they describe. However, all
mission statements should
broadly describe an organization’s
present customer focus in a
way all internal and external
stakeholders can understand. The
secret to creating great mission
The Link Between
Mission, Vision, and Strategy
A White Paper from AchieveIt

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www.achieveit.com Execute Smarter. Faster. Better.
statements is to focus on why
your organization exists, not
the products or services your
organization provides. In the
two examples above, there is no
mention of providing the highest-
quality healthcare at the lowest-
possible cost. Certainly, these
are the operational goals of both
hospitals, but the reason they
exist – their missions – speaks to a
higher purpose.
“The secret to creating great
mission statements is to focus
on why your organization exists,
not the products or services your
organization provides.”
Vision
A vision statement is a picture of
your organization in the future,
but it’s so much more than that.
A vision statement is both your
inspiration and the framework
for strategic and operational
planning. A vision statement is the
articulation of your organization’s
dreams and hopes for the future.
It reminds you of what you are
trying to build. While a vision
statement doesn’t tell you how
you’re going to get there, it does
set the direction for strategic
and operational planning. That’s
why it’s important when creating
a vision statement to let your
imagination dare to dream – and
why it’s important that a vision
statement capture your passion.
When writing a vision statement,
be sure you don’t fall into the trap
of only thinking ahead a year or
two. Once you have your vision
statement, it will have a huge
influence on decision making and
the way you allocate resources.
Values
Values are traits or qualities
that are considered worthwhile;
they represent an individual’s
highest priorities and deeply held
driving forces. Values define how
people want to behave with each
other in the organization. Values
are statements about how the
organization will value customers,
employees, vendors, and
stakeholders. Value statements
describe actions that are the
enactment of the fundamental
values held by most individuals
within the organization. The
values meld together to form your
corporate culture. The values of
your senior leaders are especially
important in the development
of your culture. These leaders
have a lot of power in your
organization to set the course and
environment. If you think about
your own life, your values form
the cornerstones for all you do
and accomplish. If you are truly
living your values, they define
where you spend your time. They
do the same for your organization.
Develop and Track Your Strategic
Plans With AchieveIt!
AchieveIt is changing the game by using a new
technology to organize business’ operational and
strategic initiatives. With AchieveIt’s web-based
software you receive the ability to:
• Build hierarchical plans for all of your business
initiatives—strategic, operational, and project.
• Assign individual users their daily, monthly, and
quarterly tactics and must dos, and track their progress
over time.
• Create robust dashboards to display individuals
progress against your most important business metrics.
• View robust reports that tell you who is executing to
their highest ability, and who is not.
As you read above, creating a relevant and effective
strategic plan is difficult, but with AchieveIt software
developing sound strategy and managing execution
has never been easier.