The CTO was pretty proud of the org’s velocity. I asked what the company’s vision was. Without hesitation, he started listing things like shipping a major feature, landing an enterprise client, SOC2 compliance, etc. “That’s the roadmap; I asked for the vision.” Silence. He could name everything built, but not what it was for.
Funny enough, we’re creating heaps of markdown files filled with contexts, explanations, and worldviews for our LLMs, while we ourselves are lacking the equivalent in our leadership roles.
What it’s really about
What we’re talking about here is more than a communication gap. Strategically, it’s a clear ceiling. A leader without vision optimizes locally. They make the team faster at building the wrong things. Your team can only operate as high as the altitude you have context for.
Everyone below a floating leader is a floating team. At 15 engineers, you got away with it. The vision was ambient. At 40, the seam that carried it silently is gone. What worked then, no longer does now.
No one is likely to hand you a nice PDF (or markdown file) titled “Vision.” It’s context you acquire, then broadcast.
Two gates decide everything: do you know it, do they know it. Let’s see where you get on the flowchart.
Protocol
Let’s start diagnosing and debugging your situation. The very first question, and we need you to be honest here, is whether you yourself understand the company’s vision. If the answer to that is “no” (or if you’re mumbling something along those lines), the next question is to realize whether the company has a proper vision or not.
Vision exists, you’re not in on it: Assuming the vision is decent, this is a good problem to have. I’ve seen many engineering leaders who felt this gap, even when they were cofounders. Your task then is to gain access to this vision. Don’t assume your job is just to execute whatever is decided and handed down to you. Realize that doing your role well requires a seat at the table where these decisions are being made so you understand what’s coming ahead of time. Elbow your way to the right meetings and rooms. Move upstream.
No company vision: Ah, this one isn’t as simple. I won’t pretend that I expect CTOs/VPEs to lead the vision-forming work at a company; that’s rarely the case. Nevertheless, you do have a responsibility to push for that to happen and stress its importance. Not doing so is abdicating your responsibility. The entire leadership team should form the direction.
Two important things for you to keep in mind in this case. The first is to be convinced you belong in the process. Often tech leaders seem to pigeonhole themselves away from anything like that. The second is to set the proper expectations. Many startups have success in forming a strategy for the next 12-24 months within 2-4 intense days. I’ve facilitated these sessions and witnessed how limiting the effort actually made people become more creative, get unstuck, and move faster.
Now what if you feel like you genuinely have the vision, but your team doesn’t? Now you have to get into instilling purpose. You should be communicating the intent and why, not the how. That’s how we get from “shallow” velocity like in the story earlier to teams that have that extra “oomph.” They understand the context they’re operating in. A very basic way to check whether they have context is considering whether you can take a week off without much hassle.
Lastly, what if everyone has the vision? That’s terrific! Really. Finally, we can get into the actual work. It’s here where we work on putting in place effective feedback loops. In every retro, in one-on-ones, when forming plans and considering alternatives, go back to your vision (comprising your strategy, values, wanted future state, and more). Use it to ensure that what the team is doing is aligned with where you want to get.
For example, when the team is considering the different approaches possible for a meaty feature or problem, is it looping in the meaning of the feature in relation to your vision? Are they just trying to “get it done,” or do they actually get it and suggest solutions or tradeoffs by weighing what’s more important? Do they proactively poke holes in what Product is asking because they can see it doesn’t align with the context they have? The last case is great because it usually means at least one of the sides is no longer in possession of the right context.
If the vision and your plans never show up as a prioritization trade-off, they’re just decorative. A solid vision, like good “company values,” should serve as an effective tiebreaker and guiding force.
Homework
Find where you are on the flowchart. Ask yourself what the vision is and, if you don’t know, ask your executive peers. To assess your team, ask a couple of ICs and see whether their answers overlap with what you have in mind.
The CTO from the story earlier? He didn’t want to change his ways, continued working vision-less on the roadmap until the CEO realized the gap had cost the company a month’s worth of R&D time the last quarter. Don’t get yourself in the same spot.