Organizational ReWilding is based on the concept of rewilding in nature, a process that occurs when a missing element is reintroduced into an ecosystem. While there are many useful parallels between the two systems, there is a fundamental difference between them: biological ecosystems come about naturally without human intervention, whereas businesses are consciously created.

The process of starting a business requires someone with vision, imagination, and a high level of risk tolerance; businesses do not spontaneously appear. The owner is concerned about all aspects of the business, including profit, cash flow, competition, employees, and cost control (among others).

In Stage 4, the leader ideally spends 10 percent of their time and energy wearing the Visionary Face, 70 percent wearing the Manager Face, and 20 percent wearing the Specialist Face. Stage 4 is characterized by a leader who is actively developing a management team that leads strong departments.

In Stage 3, the leader ideally spends 10 percent of their time and energy wearing the Visionary Face, 60 percent wearing the Manager Face, and 30 percent wearing the Specialist Face. Stage 3 is dominated by managing work and people. Since the number of people in the organization has tripled from just two Stages ago, the Manager Face consumes the majority of the leader’s energy. For the first time in the Stages of Growth, the number of people in the organization exceeds the leader’s span of control. This new dynamic drives the need for the leader to delegate work they used to perform themselves.

Stage 7’s Gates of Focus are People, Process, then Profit. The number of employees in a Stage 7 company is double or triple what the company had in the previous stage, an increase that demands for People to be the top priority. The primary way a leader can successfully show a focus on People is by investing in the growth of the Leadership Team. The company is too large for the CEO to have regular, personal interactions with all employees. He or she must rely on the Leadership Team (who in turn invests in the Management Team), as the primary driver of successful employee engagement.

In Stage 2, the leader is ideally spending 40 percent of their time and energy wearing the Visionary Face, 20 percent wearing the Manager Face, and 40 percent wearing the Specialist Face.

As an organization grows in complexity, so too does its need for structure to keep the complexity from turning into chaos. One important way organizations add structure is through Meeting Models. In general, smaller organizations are less complex than larger organizations, and necessitate fewer Meeting Models. As an organization grows, it should steadily add structure to more of its meetings.

Stage 6’s gates of focus are People, Profit, and Process. Maintaining a healthy company culture is important with the number of people between 96 to 160, making People the top priority. A big part of an organization’s success of this size is the ability to successfully assimilate new people so they are engaged and effective at their assigned roles. By this stage, the company must be growing a Leadership Team that can take over responsibility of the day-to-day activities of the business from the CEO. The gap between the CEO and incoming employees has never been wider, which is why it’s so important for the layers of leadership to be acting together as a cohesive unit.

In Stage 1, leaders are ideally spending 40 percent of their time and energy wearing the Visionary Face, 10 percent wearing the Manager Face, and 50 percent wearing the Specialist Face. Stage 1 is almost equal parts providing the vision for the company and executing on that vision.

Every organization holds different types of meetings. Generally, some of those meetings would benefit from a greater level of structure. Good candidates include those that occur often, involve a significant amount of time, or have a high degree of impact. In cases where structure is desired, Meeting Models are a useful tool. Meeting Models are organization-specific templates that define a meeting’s purpose, outcomes, protocol, and positions/roles involved.

Stage 5’s Gates of Focus are Profit, People, and Process. In Stage 5, the attention must now return to Profit to ensure that enough capital is generated to sustain a larger organization. A leader can successfully focus on Profit in two key ways: 1) ensuring business development has a synergistic strategy across marketing, sales, and customer service to generate consistent and growing revenue; and 2) tasking departments to lower costs.

In Stage 7, the ideal Builder-Protector Ratio is 2:1, which means there is twice the level of confidence as caution in the organization. The 2:1 ratio reflects a relationship between Builders and Protectors that advances the company at a sustainable pace. The company will need to double its number of employees to grow completely through Stage 7, a process that can take a long time. 

While an organization can have many types of meetings, not every type of meeting needs to have the same level of structure. Meetings improve when they adopt a suitable level of structure. While there’s no magic formula that reveals which meetings require more structure and which require less, we have identified three characteristics that can help determine the appropriate level of structure.

Organizations of every size have meetings. Meetings are necessary to bring people together and create a shared perspective. Without meetings, people are left to make decisions in isolation, lacking input from other areas of the company. Since an individual rarely has a comprehensive view of a situation, it’s not typically optimal for just one person to run the show.

Stage 3’s Gates of Focus priorities are People, Profit, and Process.

The Customer Experience Triad identifies the three main areas in which customer service must do well to successfully keep the revenue coming. When adopted by the team, the Triad provides a framework for organizing customer service activities and initiatives.

In Stage 4, the ideal Builder-Protector Ratio is 3:2, which means confidence is slightly higher than caution. The 3:2 ratio in Stage 4 reflects an organization that is once again ready to embrace change (after intentionally slowing down in Stage 3), but at a slower pace than in Stages 1 and 2.

An Organization Chart, or Org Chart, is a basic tool used by many businesses to communicate where individuals fit within an organization. In Organizational ReWilding, the variation of this concept is called a Functional Org Chart. The key difference is that the Functional Org Chart focuses on positions, not people; no names appear on the chart.