Setting the Foundation: Mission, Vision, Core Work and Values

It seems to be common wisdom that every organization should have a mission statement. But why? As you are reading this now, can you remember the mission of your current or former organization?

The mission statement is just one part of a set of high level strategic documentation that I call The Foundation. The purpose of this series of blog posts is to cover each part of the Foundation in enough detail such that the intrepid founder or early stage employee can work within their organization to define these statements.

In addition, and I think the more novel, objective is to explain to any member of an organization the purpose of these statements and how they should be incorporated in to every day activities to guide, inform and align us.

This blog series will consist of these Foundational Statements:

1. Mission: Defining what we do
2. Vision: Defining where we are going
3. Core Work: Defining how we do what we do
4. Values: Defining the shared traits of the team

There are other important strategic statements, especially external ones such as Brand and Go To Market, that will not be covered here.

This is the table of contents for a series covering the foundational statements of an organization, including the Mission, Vision, Core Work and Values. These posts are living documents and are expected to be edited, refined and expounded over time. You can bookmark the Foundation blog post to view the entire series.