How To Craft Your Company's Strategic Vision

Strategy is a prime component of organizational success. Regardless of the strategic planning model you choose to develop your strategy, you’ll need to craft a strategic vision statement that describes the future state your organization wants to reach and puts your workforce on the right path to get there.

What Is a Strategic Vision Statement?

A strategic vision statement is often used synonymously with a mission statement, but the two are distinct:

• A mission statement is an overarching concept that’s timeless, meaning it likely won’t change unless the organization goes through a major transformation. At a high level, this statement describes what your company does, or how your organization differs from others in your competitive space.
• A strategic vision statement supports the mission statement but is more tangible. It describes an achievable future state of an organization. Timelines vary but typically range from three to 10 years. This statement should help you and your employees visualize where the organization is headed. See these vision statement examples.

Since the strategic vision is time-bound, you’ll likely create (and recreate) your statement numerous times. Each time you revisit your vision statement, you have another opportunity to define your organization's path forward. Here is what to consider with every iteration.

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5 Things To Consider When Crafting Your Strategic Vision Statement

1. Establish tangible goals

The goals you set should be clear enough to know exactly when you’ve accomplished them. Having precise goals as part of your strategic vision ensures everyone in your organization knows what they’re working toward. Vagueness in your vision statement may trickle down into operational misunderstandings that hinder your success.

Specific words do real work. Houston’s Department of Health and Human Services keeps its vision to a handful of words: “self-sufficient families and individuals in safe and healthy communities.” The word “self-sufficient” tells you which programs to fund. A quick test for your own draft: cover the organization’s name. If the statement still fits a hundred others, it belongs to none of them.

You can use tools like strategy maps to help identify relevant goals.

2. Be realistic

The strategic vision of a company should be ambitious, but also realistic. Check whether you can actually achieve your goals with the resources your company has. For example, if you want to become number one in your industry, but the current market leader has ten times your annual revenue, that’s a significant hurdle to overcome.

The amount of effort and resources required to surpass them likely isn’t feasible in just a few years, so you might adjust your goals to focus on improving market share or beating competitors with revenues reasonably above your own.

3. Keep your mission in mind

Your mission statement should always act as a guide for both your operational and strategic efforts. When developing your vision statement, ensure that whatever goal and verbiage you choose doesn’t go against your mission. Misaligned statements can result in conflicting actions within the organization, negatively impacting company culture and even financial performance.

The Washington Department of Licensing (WDOL) rewrote its statement to match a new direction. When it relaunched its strategy with a “person-centered” approach, it created a new purpose statement: “Helping every Washington resident live, work, drive, and thrive.” The agency then went through its measures and focused on those most critical to its mission and the new theme. Tony Griego, Planning and Performance Manager, explained the thinking: “It is important to put yourself in the customers' shoes.”

4. Focus on guiding and inspiring your workforce

One element that a vision statement has in common with a mission statement is the ability to guide and inspire those within the organization. The difference is how: while your mission influences general decision-making among employees, your vision helps leaders devise specific actions to reach your desired goals.

5. Adapt when necessary

Depending on the type of business you operate, you may need to change your vision from time to time. Accepting this makes your organization more agile.

For example, many for-profit companies must consider evolving market conditions in their strategic planning, which may require adjusting the strategic vision annually. In contrast, a local government may only change its strategic vision every five or even 10 years.

The City of Vaughan, Ontario, is a good example of a government vision that evolved. Its first strategic plan, Vaughan Vision 2020, was rolled out in 2007. When a new City Manager joined in 2013, the city ran a six-month process to refocus the plan around Service Excellence. After another change in leadership, it reviewed the 2020 Vision as a whole, launched a Service Excellence Strategy Map, and added monthly progress reports to its annual presentations to the City Council. As the case study puts it, strategy is an iterative process.

Craft Your Company's Strategic Vision With ClearPoint Strategy Software

Strategic vision statements consistently move the organization forward in line with your mission. And because a vision can only be realized with the help of your entire workforce, sometimes the strongest statements are crafted with input from everyone at all levels, not just leaders. With all employees invested and on board, you have a better chance of staying on the defined path and achieving your goals.

The City of Germantown, Tennessee, took this to the community. For its Germantown Forward 2030 plan, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen handed development to a 30-member steering committee representing all aspects of the community. After numerous meetings, a town hall discussion with over 200 citizens reviewed the vision. By completion, community members had invested approximately 2,000 hours in the plan, which the city credits with creating unprecedented buy-in and ownership.

But you also must take concrete steps to realize your strategic vision. Start relevant projects with time frames that align with your strategic vision’s timeline. Track progress through timely meetings and reporting. And do it all easily with ClearPoint Strategy, a software solution that helps organizations of all sizes effectively execute strategy, efficiently manage projects, and save time on reporting.

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