Why company vision & mission statements don't work for SMEs
Vision & Mission have been touted as essential elements of any strong business strategy for far too long. It's time for SMEs to recognise that, when it comes to setting the direction of your business, the old way isn’t always the best way...
1. No consistent sense of ‘strong’.
Ask five business/brand/marketing consultants what a strong vision or mission statement looks like & you'll get five different answers. Then ask a business owner & who knows what you'll get!
Some see Vision as a specific destination & Mission the journey of how to get there. Others see the Vision as an idealistic aspiration, the big picture stuff, with Mission focused more on daily operational detail. Then there are those that flip it because, well, why not? To make it worse, some companies have both whilst some have one but not the other. Which one is anyone’s guess. It’s apparently random.
And don’t get us started on the current darling of the strategy world, ‘Purpose’, which is sometimes defined as “your reason for being beyond making money” or “why you exist on a deep level” (what does THAT even mean?) & sometimes “what you exist to do” - which, technically, is an entirely different question. Let's just say that Simon Sinek has a lot to answer for:)
For extra joy, some people seem to use these terms interchangeably - with a vision of a “world without homelessness” followed by a purpose or mission centred on “ending homelessness”… We kid you not.
You can dismiss this as a debate about semantics but a sensible question remains - without really understanding the role & practical use of such so-called ‘strategic’ statements, or having any agreed definition of what “good” looks like, is there any point in having them at all?
We think not.
2. No commercial application.
The risk is that business owners reach for a label because they believe it’s a “should have” without questioning whether they really need it.
Then, they copy a format they’ve seen before, filling in blanks with words that sound right, only to end up with something that doesn’t do anything productive for their business.
The output is often more of a marketing strapline than a useful strategic tool. You know the ones we mean…. Our vision/mission/purpose (pick your favourite) is "To transform lives", "To elevate brands", “To deliver great service” etc. Swap the company names out & you'd struggle to tell them apart.
Generic sentiments like this, with no recognisable fingerprint of the specific business, are as much practical use as a chocolate hammer in a heatwave.
No business relevance. Fluffy statements about a generic future don’t help guide how to build your business today. Which, ultimately, is the point of any strategic tool. Unless your vision, mission &/or purpose practically helps you with making decisions or building capabilities, how is it helping you at all? (spoiler: it’s not)
No realistic timeframe. Is it a five-year ambition or a fifty-year one? Wooly, idealistic statements that refer to a time we have no visibility on can seem irrelevant today. The trick is to remember that different businesses at different stages have different levels of visibility…
No genuine motivational element. Aspirational language isn't the same as actual motivation. People aren't moved by wooly abstractions as much as by a specific ambition that they can see being potentially achievable (the key word being ‘potentially’ - if it’s a done deal, there’s no challenge, no thrill, no need to stretch)
3. No one cares about your "Company Vision"
Typically, SME managers don’t have the time, energy or inclination to sit around explaining what the vision or mission means. And most team members won’t even know what they are or how to find them. As soon as anyone starts talking about vision, mission or purpose, there’s a real risk that eyes will start rolling - because all they hear is corporate jargon.
Some companies have a culture that can carry them off. One of Rock’s clients - Dream Inc (co-founded by Simon Squibb) - is one of them. They’re 100% mission-first & proud of it. They rock!
For many others though, the labels aren’t just meaningless, they actively put people off.
This is a big, fat problem - because these strategic statements are intended to inspire & motivate people to help the business achieve its ambitions. Which they won’t do if those people don’t understand it, relate to it or care about it.
None of that makes the exercise of setting them worthless in principle - it just means that, for many SMEs, the traditional template is unfit for the job that needs doing…
What wrong looks like...
Last year, Rock met with the owner of a boutique insurance broker who confidently told us "We've already got a clear mission statement so we're all on the same page".
Then we started interviewing people. The first 3 people we spoke to - the co-founder, an in-house sales manager & outsourced marketing consultant - proved that claim was made in error.
First off, we asked each of them to describe how they saw the business in 5 years time, in terms of reach, scope, reputation & revenue... & got 3 completely different answers.
Not just in the words used (that can be ok), but the meaning too (that's not ok).
Then we questioned the mission statement specifically. The sales manager had never seen it. The marketing consultant had been given it as part of her briefing pack but didn't think it was relevant to the role she'd been given.
In truth, not one person we spoke to in that business was able to connect the mission statement with the business strategy or goals.
Ultimately, vision, mission & purpose are all meant to be strategic tools that guide the direction of a business - so, call us controversial, but why not just talk Direction instead?
The Rock fix: Make it Relatable. Make it Relevant.
Rock does two things differently
1. We make it Relatable
We don't ask clients to define a vision, mission & purpose. Instead, we talk the everyday.
We separate the broad principle of Direction into three distinct, practical questions:
Where does the business want to get to?
How (& when) is it going to get there?
What do next steps look like?
Clients can call the outputs whatever makes sense to them - ambition, strategic goals, roadmap, north star, whatever sticks. If they really want a vision & mission, we won’t stop them - as long as the meaning matters more than the label. What we won’t entertain is debate about semantics in place of decisions that benefit the business.
2. We make it Relevant.
Another area where the standard model falls down is by assuming every business defines success the same way - as a fixed destination to be reached, a specific target to be hit.
For some, that’s a fair assumption. For businesses where there genuinely is a desired end state, then the useful work is mapping the route to get to it.
But others define success differently - through the nature of the journey itself, the way they operate, the culture they build along the way, the difference they make for their customers, their markets or the wider world - regardless of where the end destination eventually lands.
This is where Rock’s 4 Foundations Framework is really helpful. By separating out the principle of Direction from those of Connection, Impact & Value - we draw a distinction between
where a business wants to be
what it needs to do to get there
what it believes
how it behaves
who it helps
the difference it makes
how its going to compete.
Simple. Specific. Bloody useful.
And, as for which matters most? Well, that’s for each business to decide, subject to their own preferences & priorities.
Rock sees success as something our clients get to define, not us. We ask, we listen, & we build the strategic foundation around their stated ambition - not around a pre-assumptive stock template. If the language is getting in the way of the thinking, it's the wrong language!
Are you ready for a different way to do strategy?
A way that actually works for SMEs?
Ask Rock.
info@rock.partners - or DM us on LI.
Rely On Rock
Rock.Partners are trusted management partners for SMEs wanting to build stronger businesses & brands.
What we do: Acting as an extension of your management team, we provide complete support, from strategy to delivery, across your whole business...
First, we define your strategic foundations - Direction, Connection, Impact, Value.
Then, we align your whole business around them - Commercials, Creative, Culture.
How we work: Our flexible, client-led delivery model meets you where you're at.
We offer both Managed or Guided service levels, depending on how hands-on or -off you want us to be.
We can work with your in-house team, complement existing partners or plug any gaps with specialist partners from our own networks.
We scale every scope & solution to suit each clients size, stage, sector & circumstances.
From business strategy to brand identity, sales support to culture building...if you want a management partner you can rely on, one who'll help you to build a rock-solid business & isn't afraid to rock boats (or mix metaphors!), you've found it. Finally!
Rock.Partners - Strategic support that works for SMEs - Joined-up. Client-led. Rock-solid.
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