Vision, Mission, Values and other meaningless words.

Among the funniest things to read in a corporate context is the bull-crap that's plastered on company websites under 'Vision, Mission & Values'. It's vomit-enducing fluff like 'We want to make the world a better place' from a drain pipe manufacturer. Or "We want to own the 'best moments in our customer's life' that I read on a leading bhujia manufacturer's website. 'We enable our customer to be the best version of themselves' can be seen on a leading baniyaan manufacturer. 

I want to today call out the bluff of everyone who makes things so fluffy and nice to read that they lose all meaning and end up being the most skippable slide on the corporate presentation. 

Setting the vision of the business is probably the most mission critical things that a business leader does. More often than not it's delegated to the guy leading the website-building efforts. An underpaid copy-writer will open a thesaurus and fill up so much gas into the copy that's it's difficult to distinguish the vision of a electronics manufacturer from a pharma company. 

If you're aren't a Simen Sinek loyalist, you should become one before you endeavor to chart the vision and mission of your business. I once heard someone working at a high-frequency start-up saying that they don't have the time or intent to 'waste time on such things, our business model is changing every quarter'. While I understand the need for agility, I think the start-up is doing a disservice to their efforts by not charting course before jumping into the deep end of the ocean. 

The easiest way to smell rat in a business's vision is to spot the word 'innovation' in their values. And their biggest innovation would've been to give a conditioner sachet free with their 100 ml shampoo bottle. 

Companies which mention that "every employee in our company is an owner-entrepreneur" then feel free to conclude that the company is probably more hierarchical than most others. And "we care for our employees like family members" would mean that "we don't allow people to take a second gulab jamun at the office cafeteria". 

Fact of the matter is that, we've collectively made a mockery of this super-important effort and reduced it to words which mean NOTHING. The vision of the business needs to be set in stone, and clarify the brand's raison d'être and what it means to the consumer. The mission needs to chart out ways of getting there in 1/3/5 year timelines. And values need to ones which ARE, not ones you desire in your employees. List down what values (good & bad) have driven you to where you are and which ones will spark the next phase of growth for your business. These few words under 'values' must be the guiding light for all recruiting decisions that you make as a leader. Culture fit emanates from this very spot. 

I hope better sense prevails and businesses give more thought to crafting the vision, mission and values of the business and also periodically check and course-correct accordingly. Only then will these words have the meaning and utility that they're supposed to have.