Quantifying Culture Through Mission, Vision, and Value Statements
Does your organization have mission, vision, and value statements (MVVs)? If so, when was the last time you revisited them? We encourage clients to go through this exercise at the beginning of new ventures and to review it annually. Doing so keeps stakeholders aligned and builds momentum toward common goals and values.
As an established branding agency, we understand the importance of these foundational exercises. But don’t take our word for it — let the data speak for itself.
Companies who mindfully determine their corporate culture by creating MVVs perform much better than those who do not. According to Harvard Business Review’s John Coleman, culture “can account for 20-30% of the differential in corporate performance when compared with ‘culturally unremarkable’ competitors.” Think about projects you’ve worked on with various companies. When did you feel motivated, invested, and committed to your team? Your answer probably has more to do with organizational culture than salary or benefits. Because, underneath it all, we’re social creatures who crave meaningful experiences.
Are MVVs still relevant in today’s marketplace?
Big-name early adopters like Sony and Apple first made mission, vision, and value statements popular in the late 1970s and 80s. By the 90s, business studies were analyzing the effectiveness of MVVs and determining notable links between corporate identity and management strategy. The early aughts brought further evidence, heralding MVVs as the third most popular management tool after benchmarking and strategic planning. This zeitgeist inspired business leaders and authors and undoubtedly informed bestsellers like Start with Why by Simon Sinek.
MVVs were a big deal a couple of decades ago, but do they still matter? More than ever. Technology is advancing at the speed of artificial intelligence, and businesses are grappling with the hybrid workspace model. As the rate of change increases, so does our need for clarity of purpose. And just because something has been around for a while doesn’t mean it’s outdated. Today, mission, vision, and value statements should be the reasoning that drives other management tools.
Authentic MVVs should inform all of the business decisions in your organization from the top down. By defining your values and aligning your actions, strategy becomes streamlined and effective. MVVs provide a rubric for which investments to consider, who to hire, and where to focus your resources. And this isn’t only true for those in leadership positions. By internalizing your values within your company culture, stakeholders at all levels will benefit from understanding why their work matters and what they’re helping to build.
Benefits of MVVs by the numbers:
Foster teamwork toward common goals and stability in hard times: “Among those executives whose teams have a well-integrated purpose, 73% say it helps them steer through marketplace turmoil.”
Improve hiring and retention: “Purpose-driven companies witness higher market share gains and grow three times faster on average than their competitors, all while achieving higher workforce and customer satisfaction.”
Build credibility and authority in your industry: “Employees at purpose-driven companies are four times more engaged at work—a powerful source of competitive advantage.”
The perfect time to create MVVs for your business is now.
From startups to stalwarts, it’s never too late for a company to get strategic about its goals. And mission, vision, and value statements are the foundation for business strategy. Besides, given the stats above, can you really afford not to? Studies show that culture drives the best-performing companies. So, curate your culture through MVVs and look within that framework for differentiators.
Remember, the objective is to identify a purpose to guide strategy. In other words, don’t get hung up on terms and definitions. Instead, ask yourself who you are as a company and where you want to go so that you can plan accordingly.
Here are a few more tips to keep in mind:
Be honest with yourself: “Originality is less important than authenticity.”
Get your team involved: “[MVVs should be] authored by top leadership, but should involve stakeholders at all levels to create buy-in.”
Identify values first: “Both mission and vision should be based on values.”
Reverse engineer your goals: Business objectives should be the steps between mission (where you are) and vision (where you’re going).
If you’d like support defining your corporate culture identity, we’re here to help. Our brand team has designed a workshop to walk you through identifying values and crafting effective missions and vision statements. We’ll also help you brainstorm ways to integrate them into your existing ethos.
Feeling inspired? Reach out and say [email protected].