On Google: Missions and Visions

Over the duration of the past few months I’ve become a bit of a Googlephile. About six months ago I purchased a smart phone that runs off of Google’s Android operating system and it changed my entire perspective on the future of information. The capabilities they put in the palm of your hand seem almost limitless. Any bit of information you need can be retrieved at a moment’s notice. After seeing how Google has integrated the different areas of its information business into a mobile powerhouse, I thought I would see how all this related back to their mission and vision statements. As it turns out, Google’s mission and vision statement is a well phrased sentence that encompasses everything they do.

“To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,” (Google, 2010).

It doesn’t get any more straight forward than that and Google has proven that it has no intention of straying from its pre-prescribed path. According to the book Management; Challenges for Tomorrow’s Leaders, the organization’s mission, “reflects its fundamental reasons for existence,” and Google has delivered, and continues to deliver information that is accessible and useful (Lewis, Goodman, Fandt, & Michlitsch, 2007). In an article called All Google, All the Time, Everywhere, the author states in regards to Google’s new real-time search capabilities that, “the new functionality was that beyond just helping you find out where you could get an H1N1 flu shot, it could also show you how long the lines were,” (Vaughan-Nichols, 12/21/2009).

A vision statement as defined by the book is, “intended to guide the organization into the future” (Lewis, Goodman, Fandt, & Michlitsch, 2007). Whereas Google tends to talk about its mission and vision as though they are the same thing, I found another paragraph on Google’s corporate webpage that spells out where they see themselves going in the future:

“Search is how Google began, and it's at the heart of what we do today. We devote more engineering time to search than to any other product at Google, because we believe that search can always be improved. We are constantly working to provide you with more relevant results so that you find what you're looking for faster” (Google, 2010).

One might be inclined to ask if an information giant such as Google really requires a separate vision or if the single mission statement sums it all up. It is important for a company to designate what it is they do just as Google has done, but they should also set forth an idea as to how they’ll continue getting there in the future. Google has clearly expressed that it wishes to continue on its core search function as it enhances the very heart of their mission. In essence, this is what Google is about. It’s what they’ve been about, and it’s what they are going to continue to be about for the foreseeable future. A website called "Vision and Strategic Plans: Who needs them?” lays out some specific criteria that should be used to guide whether an organization should have a vision statement. They state that an organization should have a vision if one or more of the following is true (Hiatt, 1999):

• You have embarked on an initiative to produce breakthrough results for your organization, and you are on the team or the leader of the initiative.

• Your organization is performing poorly in critical areas for business success (operating costs, customer satisfaction, quality of goods or services, etc.), and you have been ask to help work this issue.

• You need to prioritize a limited amount of investment dollars between a variety of improvement initiatives (the organization can't do everything).

• You have been asked to set short and long-term goals for your organization in key performance areas.

Whereas it seems almost obvious that if caught in any of these situations the company would surly want to develop a vision, if the organization had a vision in place to begin with some of the aforementioned scenarios would have surly been avoided.

Personally, I believe that it is the duty of the organization to strive for breakthrough results and the vision should be laid out to help achieve those results. If an organization has enough forethought to set the ground works of their operations by developing a sound mission and vision statement, then they will surely avoid falling off their intended paths or becoming overwhelmed by trying to do too much. We don’t go into business to do poorly and a well thought out mission and vision helps us to stay on track. We are here to do what it is we do best at the highest possible level we are able to do it and the mission and vision are there to funnel out any possible distraction to the end result; success.

Works Cited

Google. (2010). www.google.com/corporate. Retrieved 01 24, 2010, from Google: http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html

Hiatt, J. (1999). Vision and Strategic Plans: Who needs them? Retrieved 01 24, 2010, from Prosci: BPR Learning Center: http://www.prosci.com/vis1.htm

Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H., Fandt, P. M., & Michlitsch, J. F. (2007). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders. Mason: Thomson South-Western.

Vaughan-Nichols, S. J. (12/21/2009). All Google, All the Time, Everywhere. Computerworld , Pg. 27.