The Organizational Hierarchy
1/ One of the more helpful frameworks I’ve seen as an operator and investor was taught to me by one of our advisors a few yrs ago. When there is a problem, try diagnosing from the top down:
— Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck) February 9, 2021
Mission
Vision
Strategy
Culture
People
Tactics
Product
Distribution
Sales
Marketing
Recently, I went searching for this tweet. I remembered Ryan had written down the framework that gave us both so much value over the years, but I couldn't remember the specifics.
In my head, I had ordered the hierarchy as:
- Vision
- Mission
- Strategy
- Team
- Planning
- Execution
I think either could work. The point is to have a framework for diagnosing inevitable issues as an organizational grows.
Organizations are always evolving. Learning comes in through customers, employees, investors and other channels. As new information and perspectives appear, the a decision must be made (explicitly or implicitly by ignoring it) whether to incorporate that new information/perspective or not. This hierarchy provides a path to do that.
Ryan's tweet storm goes on to say that the higher up the list you go, the less frequent changes should be made. I agree with this. My only change in the framing Ryan provides is that this isn't just useful for when problems arise. The hierarchy is a tool for constant organizational adaptation to changes in the environment.
I repeat it here so I have now have it in this file, as I plan to use it wherever I go.