The mission statement is the opposite end of the vision statement. The mission gives your story purpose. Without a purpose life has no meaning. Without a carefully constructed mission statement your company cannot effectively conduct its daily business. When your mission statement is unclear, employees fail to connect to why they work at what they do. The employee-mission disconnect is a major reason for inconsistency in a company story.
Strategic goals and objectives give direction to your story. People must have direction because it has an underlying sense of security. Direction gives structure to ambiguity. Without goals a company’s story has no end point or place to go. Having a goal gives employees a way to measure the value of the story and to check accomplishment of the story along the way.
Strategies and tactics are part of the direction-setting that will help accomplish your vision, which needs two parts to be complete. First is the “what” as defined by the goals and objectives. Second is the “how” as defined by the strategies and tactics. They are the long-term and short-term methods to define how you plan to move toward the future.
Your story must have an operational core, which is set by the philosophy statement. This is a statement about how you intend to run your business. It is an integral part of the story because it benchmarks your position in codes of conduct and ethical situations. The philosophy statement also signals to people that what you believe is central to your success. “We will be okay if we follow this philosophy of doing business” is a thought that frequently visits the minds of managers. Having a well-defined philosophy gives an anchor point in turbulent times because it provides psychological stability.