You need a vision for your organization too, not just for your business.
Irina Rokosz
During your startup phase, you were building a business. Now that you’re scaling, you’re building an organization too. And that’s a separate thing altogether — the two run in parallel, but they are not the same.
Imagine you’re in a boat. That’s your business. It obeys rules and laws not set by you (e.g., physics), but you can still choose the type of boat you want. You also get to choose the people you want in your boat. Both the boat and the people in it depend on what kind of organization you want to build — in other words, what your organizational goals are. These goals inform the choices you make.
Let’s say you want your team to stay fit — then you can choose a rowing boat. But if you want to get somewhere fast, you can choose a jet-powered hydroplane. And if you want to travel slowly and comfortably, you might choose a yacht. If you care deeply about nature and sustainability, you might choose a sailboat. If you want your team to have full autonomy, you can build a naval fleet. And if you want your team to be co-owners, you can split the costs for the yacht 😉
Valve, for example, makes computer games. But they also decided they want to be a boss-less organization. Their home page is their career page, and they’ve also made their New Employee Handbook public (for reference, not a lot of companies do that; they’ll reject sending it to you privately even if you’re a job applicant).
Another example is Buurtzorg — they provide medical home care. But they also self-organize. Their organizational setup is the answer to “the system changes of the 80s and 90s that eroded the professional nurses’ ability to provide relationship-based care” (in their own words).
A third example is Patagonia — they produce and sell outdoor clothes and equipment. However, they consider their actual business to be protecting the planet. For that reason, they run many sustainability initiatives. They even have a policy to repair or replace your gear after years of use, so you don’t simply throw it away.
That’s why you need a vision for your organization — it’s the only way to ensure your organization supports your business, and the other way around. Without an organizational vision, your business and your organization will be pulling in different directions, and you’ll be struggling at each step of the way — which can easily be avoided.