Company Vision Statement: Create One That Actually Works
Unlock the power of a solid company vision statement—one that actually drives alignment, decision-making, and results. In this video, we break down what goes into a company vision that works, why most companies get it wrong, and how to fix it without wasting time on generic blog posts or expensive consultants. You’ll learn:
The 3 biggest frustrations CEOs face with vision
The top 4 mistakes leaders make when creating their vision
A simple model for writing a company vision statement that your team will actually remember and use
Why vision isn’t just a statement—it’s your team’s compass
Transcript
Intro
Hey guys. Scott here from Result Maps. Today we're digging into company vision and that encompasses mission, vision, core values. What's the difference? What goes into them Stick around till the end. you can get these AI powered templates. I've been working with leaders to help them make sure their vision is clear so that they get results.
For decades now, I've worked with hundreds one-on-one through result maps. We've worked with thousands There's a lot of information out there pulling you in different directions, so we're gonna dive right in. Talk about what really goes in based on the hundreds and hundreds of great company vision statements we've collected and what we see work.
Frustrations
Three biggest frustrations I hear is my team doesn't get it. And that means I have to jump in and do the work of three people. My team keeps coming back to me to make decisions on things I feel like they should understand. it's, again, it's kind of, they don't get it. And then the third one is, company vision's kind of fuzzy. Like, I don't even know that it really. anything, and they've got this idea that the only way they're gonna get a company vision is by going into the mountains and fasting for seven days until the vision comes to them. Or going into an all day session with a very highly paid consultant who puts them through a bunch of steps within three hours
Wants
What everyone really wants is to feel like their team gets it, to feel like their team understands where we're going, what the guardrails are, how to make decisions, and then they're actually making decisions, driving the business forward, improving the business, and solving the different challenges and problems on their own and they want to be able to set that situation up without having to go read. a thousand blog posts on it or go into the all day session to come up with your vision and just a simple way to get the vision that's already feels very clear up here, into the world in a way that people will grab onto it, engage with it, understand it, and align to it.
Mistakes
What gets in the way of a CEO or founder getting those wants. I've been doing this a long time and even on early, early projects when I was just a baby consultant helping really large companies,
Mistake 1
I found that people tend to overfocus a laundry list of shiitake to do and call that the vision, like your to-do list isn't your vision. That's a big mistake. The business model isn't the vision. Like they confuse all these different things for what the vision is. So they're either focusing on all the tactical things that have to be done every day, or they're focusing on how the business works. You know, like we need to be the premier, whatever, e-commerce marketplace for dogs who ride bicycles.
Mistake 2
The other mistake I see is. Whether they're plugging those things in or finding another reason, they'll just avoid it altogether. It feels way too hard. So they overthink what vision needs to be.
Mistake 3
If people go do a Google search, and you get any of the gajillion SEO focused blog posts that are designed to rank on search engines by having a certain volume of keywords, they'll have like these superficial exercises based on not much simpler to get that information out than people think. Instead of doing the big exercises instead of doing, an all day session. Instead of doing that, you just need to answer some simple questions that can fill in the blanks in a way that work for people.
Instead of actually using functional, human focused things like psychology and memory and helping people a vision, people just vomit out something that. Is there because some marketing intern went and did a research project and regurgitated what's on the other 50 posts about company vision.
Mistake 4
The final mistake is building a vision by consensus. I've seen a CEO take an entire leadership team through building the vision for a company that really wasn't very far along. And that leadership team essentially engaged in creating a vision by committee, and it was so diluted complicated, but people were getting all excited about this, this idea and that idea in the moment, It wasn't driving decisions for the company, it was certainly not driving focus for the company. So it was this massive exercise all this time invested, and this is like several of the other mistakes. You're pouring energy and money into it and nobody can remember it, let alone use it.
Why
It's more than just one statement, and this is where a lot of the terminology gets in the way. You need something that provides a clarity. People need, to provide a sense of meaning for people. And it needs to be easy to remember. got to do those three things. there's a great book, man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. So the psychologist was in Nazi concentration camps, had a psychology or psychiatry degree. I forget which. But he was able to survive the camps because he constructed for himself a sense of meaning out of it. And he just showed that people have a sense of meaning, we can lean in and get through all kinds of adversity. since that book came out, you know, post World War ii, people have conducted research on this, and we've learned that the human brain needs to create meaning. So if you don't provide the vision for your employees, they're going to invent it themselves. as a leader, you have to provide a sense of meaning for people.
Big Idea
The big idea is if you don't provide the vision, human beings will insert their own. So what that means is if you're not providing it. If you've got 10 people, there's 10 different visions. If you've got a hundred people, there's a hundred different visions. If you've got a thousand people, it just keeps going.
How to Create a Company Vision Statement That Actually Works
We walk people through a very, very simple methodology and we provide. Very focused tools that tap into those ideas that leverage brain research, because otherwise you end up with this prose these poetic expressions of a business vision and what's vision versus purpose versus mission versus core values.
So for us, you know, we put a vision statement that has a statement of what we see in terms of the future, why we believe that's important.
So that's the why. And you can start with the why. When you explain it to people, that's less important here than that you have it. What, why? Then we need to define the core values, the behaviors that we encourage and ensure that our team is on those behaviors and we're hiring and firing on those behaviors. And then to remember all that, to make all that memorable, we call the title of that set of information, your Mission. And that's just what the title of the book would be. And if you think of it that simply, it becomes very, very easy to build. A compelling vision statement. that checks all of the boxes.
That's easy, simple to remember. It's crisp. Everyone feels good about it, and it gives people what they need. And you don't have to get lost in all the management consulting and business school jargon. You can just actually get after it with your people.
if people can't understand it they can't remember it, it's not serving you. They can't align to a vision just because you said it and you put it on a wall poster that nobody reads or put it as the first slide in a deck that no one reads, doesn't mean you've got a vision that anybody is engaging with.
So we make sure that the last step in the process is we create a hook that into your memory, so you can call forth all of the other elements of the process. And we call that hook your mission. it becomes the title of the book you've just created. When you've laid out the what, the why, and your core values, now you can, you can hook into those with the title of that book.
The Power of a Company Vision
Out of everything I've learned over the last 30 years, whether it's rolling out goal setting systems to companies with 70,000 employees, whether it's working one-on-one with really fantastic big name founders, or everyone in between.
Getting clarity on your vision and keeping it simple and effective is one of the most powerful things, if not the most powerful thing I've seen at getting a team to align. I've seen people who otherwise were going in many different directions, come right together.
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Hey guys!
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Click here for our AI-powered vision template. This is 12 simple questions. All you have to do is answer these questions. You don't have to go super deep into meditation. You don't have to fast for four days, and you don't need an all day session. You just need about 15 minutes.
Answer these questions and. We've taken the best of what we've learned from all that research I mentioned and our real world successes. We feed that to a very secure AI and give you back a fantastic draft for your vision. Once you approve it, you hit a button and you'll get a draft for your mission.
It's really fun to use, so I highly recommend you give it a try. We'll see you next time.