Vision statement

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title: "Vision statement" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["business-terms", "statements", "strategic-management"] description: "Future position of an organization" topic_path: "general/business-terms" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_statement" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Future position of an organization ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/LUMO_Community_Wildlife_Sanctuary_vision_and_mission_statement_at_the_main_gate_in_Kenya.jpg" caption="The vision and mission statements of the [[LUMO Community Wildlife Sanctuary"] ::

A vision statement is a high-level, inspirational statement of an idealistic emotional future of a company or group. Vision describes the basic human emotion that a founder intends to be experienced by the people the organization interacts with.

Vision statements may fill the following functions for a company:

• Serve as foundations for a broader strategic plan.
• Motivate existing employees and attract potential employees by clearly categorizing the company's goals and attracting like-minded individuals.
• Focus company efforts and facilitate the creation of core competencies by directing the company to only focus on strategic opportunities that advance the company's vision.
• Help companies differentiate from competitors.

Characteristics

A consensus does not exist on the characteristics of a "good" or "bad" vision statement. Commonly cited traits include:

• concise: able to be easily remembered and repeated
• clear: defines a prime goal
• time horizon: defines a time horizon
• future-oriented: describes where the company is going rather than the current state
• stable: offers a long-term perspective and is unlikely to be impacted by market or technology changes
• challenging: not something that can be easily met and discarded
• abstract: general enough to encompass all of the organization's interests and strategic direction
• inspiring: motivates employees and is something that employees view as desirable

Citations

References

• {{cite book|last=Project Management Institute|title=A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide)|date=2021|others=Project Management Institute|isbn=978-1-62825-664-2 |edition=7th|location=Newtown Square, PA}}

References

1. "Chapter 8. Developing a Strategic Plan {{!}} Section 2. Proclaiming Your Dream: Developing Vision and Mission Statements {{!}} Main Section {{!}} Community Tool Box".
2. Lipton, Mark. (Summer 1996). "Demystifying the Development of an Organizational Vision". Sloan Management Review.
3. (2010). "The power of vision: statements that resonate". Journal of Business Strategy.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::