Types of thinkers

In my Board of Directors class, we talked about how employees generally fall into one of three categories in an organization.

1. Mission / Vision
2. Objective / Strategy / Procedures
3. Tasks

As an analogy, imagine that a company is erecting a new building. There are the developers/owners, who imagine what the building will be used for and have a vision for how it should look. There are managers who are in charge of devising task lists and strategies for how to actually implement the building plan. And there are the construction workers who execute specific tasks, like laying bricks or installing electrical wiring.

For a company to succeed, it's critical to have people who excel in each of these areas.

When looking for board members, it's critical that they are comfortable stepping back from specific objectives and think about mission-level decisions.