Do "Mission" And "Vision" Lead To Profits?

A relevant question.

Mission and vision represent one of the most confusing intersection points for modern executives in midsize to large businesses, I’d argue. They didn’t come up on mission and vision. To them? Those are newer concepts. They “made their mark” on their companies with financials, products, services, command and control, and the like. It’s only recently that anyone has talked about fluffy junk like employee engagement, morale, recognition, and the like. For years, many executives thought of that as “the domain of HR” — as in, to be blunt, things they couldn’t give a crap about. Put it this way: most executive guys (usually guys, but not always) care about who owns P&L. They do not care about who owns mission and vision. It’s really that simple.

This, of course, is beginning to change. Disruption is scaring a few people — or at least the execs who aren’t burying their head in the sand chasing retirement. Companies who get disrupted by well-heeled upstarts usually suffer from slow, plodding decision-making — so there’s an increasing focus on org structure now. Employee engagement still seems a bit fluffy to execs, but they’ve heard a couple of positive stats. Should they embrace that concept?

Now, as all this is happening, here’s the reality. These people (the senior leaders of companies) are tasked with making money and showing growth to investors or shareholders. That’s the long and short of it. Their bonuses are contingent on that — and in some places, their ability to remain employed is contingent on that. As a result, their focus is on the money. And their time? Well, they view it as precious. (In reality, many waste all day in no-priority meetings.) So if the focus is money and time is precious, well, these fluffy concepts need to show ROI. Mission and vision need to mean something to the bottom line. If not, there’s no time to worry about them — and they’ll get kicked to HR, where they will die a slow death in a sea of webinars and passive-aggressive company-wide emails. We all know the drill.

That leads us to our central question: do mission and vision lead to profits?

Profitable mission and vision: Some earlier research

There’s some earlier work that companies having empathy is tied to revenue growth. And, there’s also been research that “compassionate cultures” lead to increased profits. I admit that “revenue growth” is different than “profits” — although both are generally good for companies — and I also admit you can find a study to prove almost anything, but this is our baseline. There are examples whereby concepts like mission and vision are tied to money. Let’s move on.

Profitable mission and vision: Some newer research