Your company’s vision statement is the statement of its potential and of what you want your business to become. Your vision statement should be meaningful to you and your organisation. It should be shared will all of the employees in your organisation in order to create a unified direction for everyone to move in.
Crafting a vision statement is a challenge for many business owners, so I have included several strategies in this article for you to make this process easier to complete.
Begin by describing the best possible business future for your company, using a target of 5-10 years in the future. Your written goals should be dreams, but they should be achievable dreams. Unachievable goals can create frustration for all parties involved and can cause a decrease in your organisation’s morale.
When writing your vision statement, use the present tense, speaking as if your business has already become what you are describing. Use descriptive statements describing what the business looks like, feels like, using words that describe all of a person’s senses.
Your words will be a clear written motivation for where your business organisation is headed. Your words can be as long as you would like them to be, but a shorter vision statement may be easier to remember.
Ask yourself the following questions as you craft your vision statement:
• What do you want your organisation to look like in the future?
• What is your organisation currently excelling at? How is your organisation currently competing in the market place?
• What do you currently use to judge your organisation’s effectiveness?
• What do your employees see for the company’s future? Ask for their advice.
• Visualise the end result of where you would like your business to be. Visualisation will help you choose the words to craft your vision statement.
Once you have completed your draft vision statement, summarise your thoughts into a single, powerful phrase to describe your entire vision statement. Your employees will remember this powerful single statement, and it will become a motivation tool within your organisation.
Share your vision statement with everyone that supports you and your entire organisation. It can take some time for the vision statement to become a common practice, but if regularly discussed and reviewed, your vision statement will become a part of your organisation’s culture.