Purpose, vision, mission, and values — here’s how they all work together

An organization’s guiding principles provide the foundation for how the organization behaves — from how it acts to how it speaks to how it makes decisions.

Needless to say, that makes these principles critically important. Yet the majority of the iterations of these principles that I have seen are convoluted at best. Too often, they are some crazy mash-up — a little bit of vision, a dash of mission, and a few values sprinkled throughout for good measure.

This is why, when asked, most will say, “Sure we have a mission. It’s in a frame in the conference room. I can’t remember exactly what it says.”

Again, these are the principles that are intended to inform our every move. Yet, most of them fail to stick. And only a rare few go on to actually inspire us.

We have the opportunity to get these right. To create something that actually inspires everyone. The first step is to understand the role of each of these guiding principles. Here is something that will help.

GET A FREE CHAPTER OF THE BOOK — BIG AUDACIOUS MEANING

Aspiring vs. Inspiring

(Excerpted from the book Big Audacious Meaning — Unleashing Your Purpose Driven Story.)