What is the difference between a mission, vision, and values?
Updated: June 20, 2023
Employees are often confused about mission, vision, and value statements. Here are just a few of the questions I'm frequently asked:
What's the difference?
What are they for?
Do we even need them all?
These questions came up a lot while I was doing research for The Service Culture Handbook. They’ve also come up while training thousands of employees on mission, vision, and values.
Here's an explanation of the three concepts along how other statements fit in.
What are a company’s mission, vision, and values?
An organization's mission, vision, and values help communicate something about the culture to employees. They should help guide each employees’ daily work and decision-making.
You can understand the difference by thinking what, why, and how.
Mission: What the company does.
Vision: Why the company does it.
Values: How the companies does it.
Here’s a video explainer:
What is a mission statement?
A mission statement broadly describes what the organization does. They can range from specific to broad. Some are only truly understood by employees.
Clio, a company that makes legal practice management software, has a fairly descriptive mission statement:
Osprey, a company that makes backpacks and other equipment to help people enjoy the outdoors, has a more abstract mission:
Despite taking different approaches, both mission statements succinctly tell employees what the organization does. These short, simple statements make it easier for employees to use the mission to guide their daily work.
What is a vision statement?
A vision statement describes why an organization exists. It often refers to a larger goal the company is relentlessly pursuing.
TriMet operates the public transportation system in Portland, Oregon. It's vision statement reads:
Compared to mission statements and values, fewer organizations have a vision statement. That’s because the mission statement often speaks to the company's reason for existing.
For instance, the JetBlue Airways mission statement is "Inspire Humanity." The company describes this mission as the reason the airline was founded:
What is a purpose statement?
A purpose statement combines elements of a mission and vision into one single statement that broadly describe what the company does and why.
Purpose statements give employees one fewer statement to memorize. That can simplify things a bit and make the purpose easier to follow.
Target’s purpose statement abstractly describes what it does (sells goods for everyday life) and how it tries to do it (helping families discover joy).
Value Statements
An organization’s values describe how its employees do business. They serve as guidelines for the types of behaviors that should be promoted and encouraged.
Rackspace, a company that provides cloud-based computer networks, shares explanations for each of its five core values to provide more context:
Excellence. We are an accountable, disciplined, high-performing company with proven results.
Customer-driven. We are proactive, collaborative and committed to success for our customers.
Expertise. Rackers are passionate learners who are embedded in our customers’ businesses to provide unbiased solutions.
Agility. We adopt new technologies and evolve services to meet customers where they are in their journey.
Compassion. We’re one team doing the right thing for our customers, communities and each other.
Some companies, like Squarespace, put their values in priority order:
Be the customer.
Design is not a luxury.
Build the ideal.
Learn fast, act fast.
Protect creativity.
Simplify.
Where do other statements fit in?
Companies often have a myriad of other statements on top of their mission, vision, and values. These include mottos, slogans, and brand promises.
An informal LinkedIn poll revealed that nearly half of organizations have four or more statements that are used to guide employee behavior. Having too many statements for employees to remember can get confusing.
Whenever possible, it helps to simplify.
Regular readers know I often refer to a company's customer service vision statement, which is a shared definition of outstanding service that gets everyone on the same page.
In customer-focused organizations, the mission does double duty as the customer service vision, eliminating the need for a separate statement.
For example, JetBlue's Inspire Humanity mission tells employees what the company does (albeit very abstractly) and how they should treat customers.
Many companies have a separate brand promise or marketing slogan. That's okay, as long as the external statements are still aligned with the company's mission, vision, or values.
The Armstrong Garden Centers brand promise is "Gardening without Guesswork." This is a succinct and very natural external version of the company's mission statement:
We strive to take the guesswork out of gardening by providing horticultural expertise, exceptional service, and the best quality plants and products. We are passionate gardeners cultivating a welcoming environment for all to learn and be inspired.
Conclusion
Fewer statements are better than more statements. Simplify whenever possible. You want to provide clarity, not confusion.
Do you need help writing a mission, vision, or values? Here are some resources to help:
Write your mission: My free step-by-step guide
Build a service culture: The Service Culture Handbook