Simplifying our sense of mission and vision

It's a good idea to think about brand as what our markets think about us. By our markets we mean both those who use the value we provide and those who could use the value we provide.

So certainly we can have brand intention about what we want people to say about us behind our back.

Many organizations look at mission as the business for him which translates basically into brand. This includes both our actual brand as perceived by the market and are intended brand.

One way to look at mission and vision is that mission is our current brand as it exists and vision is our intended brand. This makes for an easy and simple distinction which helps guide us in putting together our Agile Canvas.

The core problem with mission and strategy

Leaders spend an interesting amount of time arguing about mission and strategy. These are military metaphors for campaigns to conquer enemies. The most fundamental reason leaders struggle is not about their incompetence or lack of will. It's because the metaphor simply doesn't apply. 

There are many organizations focused on doing good. They don't have enemies. Their work doesn't involve military offensive. Their work lives in a whole different realm of creativity, innovation and sensitive delivery of value to markets.

They need dream-inspired approaches to deep listening and surprising the imagination of their markets. It has nothing to do with a mission and strategy of force, conquering and capturing, or debilitating other organizations. They find meaning in an organic growth imperative.