Mission, Vision, Core Values, and the importance of building company culture
I’m going to quickly put a pin in all the solutioning we’ve been discussing because a lot of the founders I’ve been working with recently have been asking me questions about building company culture and day-to-day operations. Because of the importance of culture - and how it influences your entire company - I’ll start there.
What is company culture?
Company culture is the set of goals, values, and behaviors that drive a company’s operations. This includes what decisions you’re making, how you’re making them, whom you’re employing, and what you’re working towards. Your company culture will encompass your mission, your vision, your core values, and the overall “vibe” of your company. These will guide how you will build your company and will ultimately impact its success.
Your company culture will impact retention, productivity, and ultimately, your end results. In future articles, I’ll discuss how understanding and actually implementing these will directly impact your strategic planning, cross-company alignment, and if/how things get done.
What is your mission?
Borrowing from ClearVoice, a mission statement focuses on today and what an organization does to achieve it. To clarify, I think of “today” as in what are we actively building today and will have accomplished within the next 2-4 years.
A mission statement to be “the only payroll provider in the world” is different from “to power every paycheck in the world”. To be “the only” would mean you destroy all your competition. “To power every paycheck” opens the doors for co-opetition - you could potentially power other payroll platforms.
Articulating and understanding your mission will be incredibly important as you’re identifying your big company goals, objectives, and key performance indicators. We’ll do a deep dive into strategic planning in a future article.
What is your vision?
Also borrowing from from ClearVoice, a vision statement focuses on tomorrow and what an organization wants to ultimately become. When I think of “tomorrow” I think about how will the world be different 5 - 7+ years from now because of what I’ve built or accomplished. Hopefully, if you achieve your mission, you’re that much closer to achieving your vision.
What are your core values?
Core values are the deeply ingrained principles that guide all of a company’s actions. Your core values must be integrated into every process and decision - hiring, partnerships, and even overall company strategy. HBR wrote an incredible article about core values vs. aspirational, permission-to-pay, and accidental values. I can’t say it better, so I highly encourage you to read their article.
A real-life example: the company culture I tried to build
At my past companies, we made our company culture a part of our DNA. During interviews with candidates, we would incorporate questions designed specifically to test candidates’ alignment with our core values. During new hire onboarding, we’d provide extensive material on mission, vision, core values, and behavioral expectations. We’d re-articulate these during our weekly All Hands and lead by example. We would make strategic company decisions with mission and our core values in mind. We would grade our performance as a company and our employees’ performance against our mission and core values.
The last company I cofounded Mission Labs. We were a platform for brands and creators to mint, manage, and sell their utility-backed NFT collections on their actual websites.
Vision: To shape how the physical world operates in the evolving digital metaverse. We want to be a main player in setting the standard of what the future of the metaverse will look like through the lens of NFTs. We need to be able to advocate for our values of creator advocacy, transparency, and equity while this ecosystem is being defined. We can be a guide as aspects of our physical world intertwine with the digital.
Mission: To make NFTs mainstream by educating and empowering Creators and their communities. We want to put NFTs at the forefront of people's thoughts by making them crucial to Creators’ playbooks. Creators will be given tools to educate their audience and connect them to this new digital space in a streamlined way.
Core Values
Ownership: Possession of something; attitude of accepting responsibility for something. We take ownership in everything we do, and all Creators have true ownership over their work in the metaverse.
Curiosity: A strong desire to know or learn something. We lead with curiosity, helping us learn quickly and solve problems creatively, and our curiosity drives us to seek out novel Creators, opportunities, and solutions. pertise and comfort in this new arena.
Responsibility: A moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of. We take responsibility for how our (in)actions impact the evolving digital metaverse, and we take responsibility for doing right by Creators and their communities.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Ideas, viewpoints, and experiences from all people will help us innovate, grow, create amazing experiences, and stay relevant in the ever-changing digital metaverse. We will espouse these values as we build our business, and we are excited to work with Creators from different backgrounds and different stories.
Unity: The state of being united or joined as a whole. We value a diverse range of opinions, and once we come to a decision, we form a united front to do what's best. Individual expression within the metaverse has no borders; we are creating an interconnected and unified community.
Impact Initiative: Equity, Access, and Opportunity. We believe that no one should be left behind. We are committed to using our influence to ‘level the societal playing field’ by donating our time, lending our voices, and contributing money to initiatives that promote Equity, Access, and Opportunity to historically marginalized communities
💡TLDR: Your company culture matters. Your mission, vision, core values, and “vibe” will impact the objectives you set for yourself, the talent you hire, the decisions you make, and your ultimate success. Mission is present-state; Vision is future-state if we're able to accomplish our mission (where will we be and/or how will the world be different because of us). Core values are the deeply ingrained principles that guide all of a company’s actions.
📖 Exercise: Understand and articulate your mission, vision, and core values. Understand what type of company culture you want to want to cultivate.
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