Vision, Mission . . . What's the Difference?

January 1999 Issue

Vision, Mission . . . What's the Difference?
By James A. Woehlke, CPA

Mission statements, vision statements, strategic planning, core values, core competencies ... to a "brass tacks" profession like CPAs, these seemingly wishy-washy terms can be confusing. What is the difference between a vision statement and a mission statement, and how do they both fit into strategic planning? Although the experts disagree, the basic differences are as follows:
* A mission statement concerns what an enterprise is all about.
* A vision statement is what the enterprise wants to become.
* Strategic planning is a systematic process whose purpose is to map out how the enterprise should get from where it is today to the future it envisions.
As its name implies, the CPA Vision Project (www.cpavision.org) is focused on a vision of the CPA profession's future rather than a mission for the present. The project developed that future vision through a detailed process that included over 150 forums attended by more than 3,300 CPAs from throughout the country.
The CPA Vision Project defines visioning as "a strategic process through which a company, industry, or profession analyzes the potential effects of current and projected macro forces, develops future scenarios, defines and assesses its core competencies and values, and begins to plot strategy for achieving its vision for the future. The purpose of creating a vision for the future is to enable us to take the appropriate actions to make our optimum future happen."

Future Forums: Exercises in Visioning
The CPAs who participated in the CPA Vision Project's "future forums" received firsthand experience of the visioning process. In a way, the experience was misleading, because the project's staff compressed what would have normally taken weeks of meetings into a one-day meeting. Nevertheless, each forum went through a complete, albeit abbreviated, visioning exercise.
Each forum studied six global forces that will impact our future as a nation and a profession: political, economic, social, technological, human resources, and regulatory forces. The forces can interact in innumerable ways, meaning an infinite number of possible future scenarios can result. Participants focused on three scenarios describing business activity in 2011. Each forum chose one of the three scenarios to outline what the future was assumed to be. For example, one of the more popular scenarios selected was the following:
Rapid growth and opportunities worldwide continue to render controls irrelevant. Major international agreements turn the economy into fast forward mode only to be followed by severe financial failures. Billions are made and lost overnight. The economic hype shifts from country to country, continent to continent. Domestic growth is not sufficient to sustain large corporate commitments, yet international expansion is frequently frustrated due to lack of systems. Companies rise and fall daily and the United States is caught in the middle of a world spun out of control with seemingly nothing to slow the pace down. The United States' relative position remains strong but individuals and companies suffer tremendous loss as others enjoy major successes.
Once the forum settled on a future scenario, participants answered questions such as:
* What are the significant issues that would face a CPA in such a future?
* What are those values of the profession that are unlikely to change as it moves to such a future? (These are core values.)
* What services will the public need in the future?
* What core competencies will CPAs need to develop to provide these services?
* What will be the core purpose of the profession?
As outlined in the November issue of The Trusted Professional, the following vision statement was devised as a result of input from the future forum:
CPAs are the trusted professionals who enable people and organizations to shape their future. Combining insight with integrity, CPAs deliver value by communicating the total picture with clarity and objectivity, translating complex information into critical knowledge, anticipating and creating opportunities, and designing pathways that transform vision into reality.
AICPA Vice Chair and NYSSCPA member Robert K. Elliott (Westchester) underscored the importance of the vision statement to the profession when he said, "Future forum participants came up with a very forward-looking vision statement. Does that mean it will stand for all time? Certainly not. But it does provide
a large and attractive 'space' in which CPAs can
develop valuable new services and--by bettering the
results of their clients and employers--maintain the profession's vitality."
Elliott's comment and the entire forum process emphasize the future orientation of the process that developed the vision statement. It clearly presents more than just a present mission for the profession, but a future vision CPAs can strive to attain. Now it is time for individual CPAs and their firms to buy into the vision and then strategically plan to achieve it. *

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