Using MVV to Make Business Decisions
There are many strategies to create your Mission, Vision, and Values, including working with me. This worksheet, however, is a tool to make sure your business is using MVV to make everyday decisions.
Someone brings you an issue, whether it be a customer complaint or a breakdown in a process. Use this worksheet to decide what happens next.
The Rule: If it isn't a clear yes, it's a no. If you can't clearly explain how a decision supports your Mission, Vision, or one of your Values, stop and clarify them in plain language. Being able to explain your reasoning matters right now and for the people who will eventually help you make decisions in the future.
Did the subject of the issue fulfill that promise and meet your expectations of what should happen?
A customer may be wrong about why or how something happened and still be right that something needs to be fixed.
Use these questions to investigate:
Did we fail to deliver what we promised?
Did we follow our own policies and standards?
Is there a problem with the product, service, process, communication, or expectation?
Is the issue within our control and responsibility?
In this investigation, did we find something that needs to be addressed?
Don't assume there is only one answer. Write down at least three possible responses to the issue at hand.
Put Our Mission, Vision & Values to Work
For each option, complete steps 3 - 5
Our Vision describes the company we are working toward becoming.
Does our proposed response clearly support and move our business toward the Vision?
Our Mission describes what our business does every day to move toward our Vision.
Does our proposed response support what our business exists to do?
Does anything need to be clarified about our Mission before we can use it to support or change the proposed decision?
Test the proposed decision against each of our Values. For each one, answer yes or no, and explain the reasoning.
Think beyond the now. The cost might be instant or it could create a situation that costs something in the future.
The cost might be time, convenience, a sale, a difficult conversation, a change to your process, your reputation, etc.
Does the decision uphold this Value?
Repeat this process for each one of our Values.
If we aren't willing to accept the cost of upholding a Value, this might not be one of our true Values.
Explain your decision as if you had to hand it to someone else and have them understand your reasoning.
Are you willing to pay that cost?
Are you comfortable with what that says about the company you are building?
A good decision may reveal that something needs to change. Does this situation point to a need for:
This can be as simple as reporting back to stakeholders or as complex as changing a policy or process or retraining someone.
Your Mission, Vision & Values affect more than how we feel about the decision.
Think about customer loyalty, repeat business, referrals, reputation, consistency, time, profitability, and the ability to eventually have other people make decisions without you standing over their shoulder.
Does this decision help build the business you say you want to own?
If someone else had to make this exact decision tomorrow, could they read your Mission, Vision, and Values and understand what you would want them to do, and why?
If the answer is no, that's not a failure, it's information. Your Mission, Vision & Values may need more work before they can do the job you need them to do.
