Build a business based on clarity and inclusivity.

Building great products and running a successful business requires taking care of your people. In a world that’s maximizing on one side, pleasing and serving its markets, it’s easy to forget that none of your business would happen without the people in your organization.

As a founder, entrepreneur, or senior executive, you need to build an organization that doesn’t just support the goals of the business. You need to build an environment where people can thrive, be themselves, feel supported, and feel safe.

An intentional organization acknowledges and reinforces that the greatest contributors to its success are the people in it. It’s about creating an environment where people are listened to and heard, where they can be their whole selves, without having to hide any of it, and where they have an opportunity to grow. In short, in an intentional organization, people are treated as humans.

Many startups focus only on the business side of things as they grow, neglecting the organization, without which, their business wouldn’t exist. The Intentional Organization is our contribution to providing guidance and ideas on how founders, entrepreneurs, and executives can change that. An intentional organization is continuously learning and inclusive at its heart. It invests in its people and cares about the craft of how things are made. It’s aiming for clarity wherever there is uncertainty.

We define an intentional organization along three dimensions: inclusion, clarity, and learning. Each is important on its own but only jointly do they create an environment where people know what's expected from them and where it's clear how they can get there.

Inclusion. Everyone has a voice and an opportunity to chime in, however big or small decisions are. Everyone can be sure that their safety is of the greatest concern to the organization.

Clarity. An intentional organization is clear on what it’s trying to achieve and how it’s looking to get there. It’s clear on what it’s trying to achieve and how. It provides transparent channels for information to flow and for people to communicate.

Learning. Continuous improvement of its every day practices, of how work gets done, is a constant part of operating in an intentional organization. It also provides its people with opportunities to learn new skills, to take on new challenges, and to contribute value beyond their role.

Throughout the years, we’ve each built several companies, showing similarities in how we envision and build a humane organization, long before we met. In working together and in creating a book on our shared experiences, our highs and lows, as well as our learnings, we’ve manifested them in our coaching practice and in the book we’re working on.