Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Building Your Strategic Foundation

Knowing why you're doing what you're doing (your mission), where you're trying to go (your vision), and how you're going to go about it (your values) are the glue that holds an organization together. You preserve these elements while your strategies and goals change and flex with the market. You may modify your mission, vision, or values over time, but the intent stays unchanged. So just like the fisherman, you, too, will have complete clarity when making critical business decisions that impact your future.

Your mission, vision, and values can sound abstract, esoteric, and downright fluffy to a lot of people, especially those who are burning to move forward with a real-world project. These people don't want to hang back conceptualizing about people's wishes and dreams.

Don't let being pragmatic get in the way of this important stage of building a strong foundation of consensus for your organization. If you don't take the time to articulate mission, values, and vision on the front end, you may pay for it later when you're trying to write goals and objectives without a crystal clear strategic direction.

In this chapter, you develop and revise your mission, vision, and values statements. Following an average time frame for the strategic planning process, this chapter's tasks should take you approximately two weeks to complete. Take a look at your ...