The cellular structure of any truly great organization is the well-led unit, for this is where great things get done. Great leadership at the top doesn’t amount to very much without exceptional leadership at the unit level. If you want to build a truly great company or social-sector enterprise, you need to cultivate legions of unit leaders who, in turn, create unit cohesion in pursuit of audacious objectives. If you want to scale your culture, if you want to make the journey from great company to enduring great company, you must invest in building a pipeline of the right unit leaders.

It’s good practice to codify your vision on paper. Writing it down forces you to think rigorously about what exactly you are trying to do. Even more important, it’s a critical step in making it the organization’s vision, rather than the vision of a single leader.

As for what you shouldn’t delegate, consider the unique value you’re able to add when it comes to the organization’s top priorities. Some of that flows from your personal strengths. For example, I’m a good writer, so over the years I’ve used that skill to help our team document and share its values—from authoring career guidelines and interview playbooks to putting out internal notes on lessons we’ve learned in building products. One of my colleagues is an amazing operator, so he’s responsible for running our design team’s most complex processes, such as recruiting. My manager Chris is one of the most inspiring speakers I know, so he’s the first person to greet new employees at orientation and tell them about Facebook’s mission and values.

It’s time to break apart a 50-year-old business term — strategic planning — and think about it in terms of two distinct activities: strategic thinking and execution planning. Each requires two very different teams and processes.

Strategic thinking requires a handful of senior leaders meeting weekly (it’s not sufficient to do strategy work once a quarter or once a year) in what Jim Collins calls “the council.” It’s a meeting separate from the standard executive team meeting. Rather than getting mired in operational issues, the strategic thinking team is focused on discussing a few big strategic issues including those outlined in the SWT and 7 Strata tools summarized below.

Chapter 8: Breaking Rules and Building a Team

“When you ask, “Why do we do it this way?” and the only answer is “Because that’s how it’s always been done,” that rule deserves another look.