Andre Ivanchuk

Yes, there is a difference between Vision and Mission. Sadly enough, most organizations do not know the difference, and end up creating unnecessary confusion within their organization – resulting in stunned forward momentum. In a nutshell…

Vision is

• Future Oriented
• The bigger picture
• The aspiration
• How you envision the world
• The results
• The purpose
• The Why

Mission is

• The process of achieving the Vision
• Now oriented
• The action & activity
• The methods, systems, approaches
• The How

When the Vision is not reached, it is not the Vision that needs changing, but the Mission – the methods of attaining the Vision.

A colleague of mine made an interesting point regarding the current state of the market, particularly the tens of thousands of layoffs we are seeing. The point is this – there is no real evidence that the companies cutting the jobs are in a critical financial position to need to layoff the people, they are merely using current conditions as an excuse to get rid of people they’ve been trying to eliminate, but could not find a good reason to do so.