Most company visions live in a founder’s head. The founder can explain it over dinner, but the team couldn’t write it down, and new hires pick it up by accident, if at all. That’s fine at five people. At twenty-five, it means people make reasonable decisions that pull in different directions.
Writing the vision down fixes that, as long as it’s short, specific and somewhere the team will see it. Clarion’s vision board is a single page for exactly this. Your job is to fill it with something true.
Start with why, briefly
The Mission & Purpose card asks four questions:
- Mission and Purpose: why does this company exist?
- What We Do: in plain terms, what do you actually deliver?
- Target Market: who are you for?
- Commitment: what do you promise, and what happens if you miss it?
Answer each in a sentence or two. Write it the way you’d say it to a new hire, not the way it would appear in a press release. “We help independent restaurants stop losing money on food waste” beats “We empower hospitality stakeholders to optimise resource utilisation.”
The Target Market answer matters more than it looks. A clear “who we’re for” is also a clear “who we’re not for”, and that settles a lot of sales and product arguments before they start.
Name your values, and mean them
Core Values are the few behaviours you’d hire for, fire for, and praise in public. Each has a name and an optional description. Use the description, because a one-word value like “Integrity” means different things to different people. “Tell the client the bad news first” is harder to misread.
Three to five values is enough. A useful test: can you name someone on the team who embodies each one, and a decision you made because of it? If not, it’s an aspiration, not a value.
Say what makes you different
The USPs card is for what sets you apart. Keep it honest. If a competitor could say the same thing, it isn’t unique. Next to it, Go To Market captures how you’ll reach the market over the next few months: channels, campaigns, partnerships, launches.
Set goals at three horizons
The bottom of the board is a goal cascade with three columns: 3 Year, 1 Year and 90 Days. Each column has a target date and space for:
- Revenue and Profit targets.
- KPIs: the handful of numbers that define success at that horizon.
- A checklist of what’s true by then. In the 3 Year column it’s “What does it look like?”; in the 1 Year column it’s the goals for the year; in the 90 Days column it’s this quarter’s company goals. Checklist items can be ticked off as they happen.
Write the 3 Year picture as a description of a real future: how many people, which customers, what the business feels like to work in. Then let the 1 Year column be the step that gets you a third of the way there, and the 90 Days column the step after that. Turning the 1 Year column into a plan is covered in setting annual priorities.
Make it the team’s, not just yours
Draft it yourself, then put it in front of your leadership team. Ask:
- What’s missing?
- What would you say differently?
- Which part do you not believe?
The last question is the important one. A vision the leadership team doesn’t believe won’t survive the first hard quarter. Expect two or three rounds before it’s right.
Once it’s agreed, share it. Point new hires to it in their first week. Read the Mission & Purpose card aloud at the start of your quarterly planning session. Refer to the values when you make a hard call. A vision gets real by being used.
A review rhythm
- Every quarter: update the 90 Days column as part of quarterly planning, and tick off what’s done in the 1 Year column.
- Every year: rewrite the 1 Year column and check the 3 Year picture still holds.
- Every few years, or after a big change: revisit purpose, target market and values. They should change rarely, but they can.
Common mistakes
Writing for outsiders. The vision board is for your team. Marketing copy goes on the website.
Too long. If it doesn’t fit on one screen, nobody will read it twice. Cut until every line earns its place.
Values that are table stakes. “Honesty” and “hard work” describe every company. Pick values that would actually change a decision.
Goals without numbers. “Grow significantly” isn’t a goal. Put a revenue figure, a profit figure and a date in the 1 Year column.
Writing it once. A vision that hasn’t been looked at since it was written isn’t guiding anything. Connect the 90 Days column to this quarter’s milestones and the KPIs to your weekly metrics, so the long view shows up in the weekly work.
For the clicks, see build your vision board.