At a Brainzooming internal branding strategy workshop I was presenting, one attendee remarked about wanting more vision statement examples. From what she described, her company’s leadership had rushed to develop big strategy statements (such as a core purpose, vision statement, or mission statement), but was now rethinking its direction. She saw documenting as many vision statement examples as possible as a huge help to getting it right this next time.
I suggested that instead of starting with a pre-defined list of big strategy statements her company needed, they should invest time in more thoroughly what mattered for the organization’s success and its intended direction. Only after that exploration, they could identify what types of statements (and the content of each) that would make sense.
6 Steps to Figuring out Your Company’s Big Strategy Statements
While I didn’t have time to spell out the steps other than writing down all the vision statement examples she would hear during the conference, here is a way to explore first and figure out the right big strategy statements you need afterward:
- Start with finding the right ideas that describe and represent your brand.
- Once you've found the ideas, begin identifying words and phrases that best capture the ideas in multiple ways.
- Now think about any other places where the words you are considering are used. What are the others words, phrases, and structures in these other locations? How might they fit in your situation?
- With this big set of words, add a dose of aspiration. If you super-sized what you want your brand to become and its description, what other words and phrases would you imagine as possibilities?
- Now add one more mega-dose of aspiration. If you used language that was so glorious and strong that your competitors would shudder, what would it be?
- Now that you have an even bigger set of language, start playing with combinations of words and phrases to describe your brand's current situation and the difference you are trying to make (mission statement), future aspirations (vision statement), and reasons for existence (core purpose).
These steps will more readily lead to big strategy statements that work hard for your organization. THEN if you need to see some vision statement examples to put the finishing touches on what you’re doing, go ahead and do it. - Mike Brown
Create the Vision to Align and Engage Your Team!
Big strategy statements shaping your organization needn't be complicated. They should use simple, understandable, and straightforward language to invite and excite your team to be part of the vision.
