A vision statement is a high-level, inspirational statement of an idealistic emotional future of a company or group. Vision describes the basic human emotion that a founder intends to be experienced by the people the organization interacts with.

Vision statements may fill the following functions for a company:

• Serve as foundations for a broader strategic plan.

• Motivate existing employees and attract potential employees by clearly categorizing the company's goals and attracting like-minded individuals.

• Focus company efforts and facilitate the creation of core competencies by directing the company to only focus on strategic opportunities that advance the company's vision.

• Help companies differentiate from competitors.

Characteristics

A consensus does not exist on the characteristics of a "good" or "bad" vision statement. Commonly cited traits include:

• concise: able to be easily remembered and repeated

• clear: defines a prime goal

• time horizon: defines a time horizon

• future-oriented: describes where the company is going rather than the current state

• stable: offers a long-term perspective and is unlikely to be impacted by market or technology changes

• challenging: not something that can be easily met and discarded

• abstract: general enough to encompass all of the organization's interests and strategic direction

• inspiring: motivates employees and is something that employees view as desirable

See also

• Strategic planning

• Mission statement

• Strategy Markup Language

Citations

References