Bodies Not Boats: Why Your Company Is More Organism Than Vessel

Everyone talks about getting your team "rowing in the same direction," but companies are more like bodies than boats.

Your kidneys filter toxins while your heart pumps blood. They work together, but they're doing completely different jobs with completely different mechanisms.

Same with your company. Your sales team is the cardiovascular system, pumping revenue through the organization. Your design team might be the nervous system, creating the sensory experiences that define how the world perceives you.

You wouldn't want your liver cells trying to be neurons. So why do we expect our specialists to all think and work the same way?

The magic happens when you get the right catalytic enzymes to the right organs. When information, resources, and decisions flow to where they're needed most.

Your designers need space to obsess over those Bézier curves without worrying about quota. Your sales team needs to chase deals without pixel-perfecting their slide decks.

The healthiest companies understand this. They don't force artificial alignment where natural specialization should exist.

They focus on circulation instead. Making sure oxygen (resources) gets everywhere. Making sure toxins (bad processes) get filtered out. Making sure the immune system (culture) protects what matters without attacking healthy tissue.

Stop trying to build a rowing team. Start building a living, breathing organism where every part does what it does best.