24 competencies · four dimensions
The 24 Competencies
DOES is not a sequence reserved for executives at the top of an org chart. It is a cycle of Design, Organize, Execute, and Sustain that recurs at every level of purposeful work, from a frontline shift lead to a board committee.
Dimension 01
Design
Design narrows possibility into direction, so the organization can commit to a future it can actually carry.
Strategic Visioning Giving the future operational shape It resolves the gap between an exciting future and a future specific enough to guide real trade-offs. External Awareness Reading the world before it forces your hand It resolves the tension between insulated confidence and reactive panic, disciplining what signals deserve to change direction. Innovative Thinking When improvement is no longer enough It resolves the confusion between refining what still works and designing a new logic when the old one has reached its limit. Analytical Decision-Making Deciding what reality can support It resolves the tension between enough evidence to avoid fantasy and enough judgment to move before certainty arrives. Risk Management Proactively navigating strategic challenges It resolves the tension between avoiding risk, which mortgages the future, and ignoring it, which mortgages it differently. Goal Alignment Turning intent into organizational coherence It resolves the tension between over-specifying goals until people stop thinking and under-specifying them until judgment becomes unsafe.
Dimension 02
Organize
Organize converts a chosen direction into roles, decision rights, resources, and rhythms the system can actually carry.
Cross-Functional Collaboration Making interdependence operable across boundaries It resolves how specialized functions can create shared value without turning necessary coordination into constant drag. Talent Alignment Placing people against the work, not the title It resolves the mismatch between the level of work a role truly demands and who has actually been placed to carry it. Resource Management Making strategy honest under real constraint It resolves whether declared priorities receive real funding, staffing, and attention, or remain sentences on a slide. Culture Building Making values hold under pressure It resolves whether stated values survive contact with speed, conflict, and ambiguity, or quietly give way under pressure. Stakeholder Management Making trust operable across the wider field It resolves whether a technically sound decision can actually travel because the people who must carry it trust it. Communication Making meaning travel without distortion It resolves how intent and context can travel across an organization as shared meaning rather than as mere information.
Dimension 03
Execute
Execute converts intention and structure into visible delivery, adaptation, and results the organization can be judged by.
Operational Excellence Making the system carry the work This competency resolves the tension between reliability and adaptation, deciding what must be standardized and what may vary. Accountability Making ownership safe, visible, and fair Accountability resolves the tension between needing real consequence and avoiding a climate where people hide rather than own. Decision-Making Agility Holding coherence when conditions shift This competency resolves the trade-off between delaying too long and acting so fast that the system fractures into improvisation. Project Management Leading initiatives to completion This competency resolves whether chosen direction can travel through real dependencies without fragmenting into local interpretation. Performance Management Tracking progress, enabling performance This competency resolves the trade-off between too little visibility, which lets drift hide, and too much pressure, which turns measurement into fear. Problem Solving Solving problems without breaking momentum This competency resolves the difference between speed as anxious motion and momentum as motion that still points the right way under pressure.
Dimension 04
Sustain
The work of preserving continuity, developing people, and validating that the organization deserves to keep going.
Foresight and Scenario Planning Preparing for more than one future The trade-off between optimizing today's model and staying prepared for futures that have not yet arrived. Innovation Leadership Renewing without breaking reliability The trade-off between protecting current reliability and building renewal into the organization as a real capability. Leadership Development Building successors through consequential work The trade-off between growing judgment through real consequence and mistaking exposure or polish for readiness. Organizational Resilience Making trust hold under shock The trade-off between stability that protects and stability that becomes brittle when conditions change. Change Management Moving the organization without breaking trust The trade-off between moving toward a necessary future and preserving the trust that makes movement possible. Sustainability Thinking Making legitimacy durable The trade-off between present commercial performance and the long-term legitimacy that permission to keep operating depends on.
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Twenty-four competencies, read through the DOES cycle and the Levels of Work. The full architecture, chapter by chapter.
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