Town planners at the top

Simon Wardley describes three kinds of people every organisation needs. Pioneers explore and come back with something new. Settlers make the rough discovery real and repeatable. Town planners industrialise it — efficient, reliable, ready for scale.

Watch what happens as a business grows. The early years belong to the pioneers. Then the organisation starts rewarding predictability, and the people who deliver it rise. Over time the top table fills with brilliant operators — which is fine, right up until you ask that table to set direction in deep uncertainty. People whose gift is removing uncertainty, asked to decide inside it.

The fix isn't to replace your operators. It's to make sure the explorers still have a seat, and that someone asks them what they can see ahead. Who on your leadership team is looking furthest out — and how often do they get the last word?