# Why excellent sales and operations fail without a foundation [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Organization source booklet: [The Three Hats](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/three-hats) Production and organising are two poles, and establishment is the base that holds them in place. Without the base, all the effort in the first two hats generates no power. Two capable people, one strong at sales and one strong at operations, can work hard for a whole year and get middling results, with neither of them doing anything wrong. According to the booklet, what they lack is the third hat: whoever builds and maintains the foundation they both stand on. ## A pilot and copilot with no aeroplane Three hats run in every business. Someone drives production, someone arranges the flow, and someone builds the foundation and maintains it. The booklet explains how they relate with the image it calls the easiest to remember in the whole text. According to the source, trying to run a business that does not exist, or to fix one, gets you nothing. There are no statistics and there is no money. The person driving production and the person arranging the flow have nothing to run. They are a pilot and copilot with no aeroplane, and they do not fly. That is the job of the Establishment Officer. This hat brings the aeroplane, and also makes sure the other two fly it well. The booklet also gives the reason the aeroplane so often stays unbuilt, even when everybody knows it is needed. Whoever is meant to build and maintain gets pulled into production, because production is a bottomless pit and there is always another client. Once that happens the building stops, and nobody notices, because production looks fine at exactly that time. Suppose two capable partners who open an agency. One is excellent at sales and the other at operations, and they have no system, no templates and no training. They work hard for a year with middling results. Then the same agency spends two days building a basic foundation. The same two people, with the same talents, produce twice as much. ## Why three The booklet says the number three has structural logic behind it. The source borrows the image of a motor, whose base holds two terminals in fixed positions. Since they are held fixed, the motor can generate power. Applied to a business, the two poles are production and organising, and establishment is the base that keeps them where they are. Without a base, both poles move, and neither one alone generates anything. That is why the booklet's title for this chapter is the triangle: three points that together give a stable structure. Each is needed, and none works alone. It also explains why more effort in the first two hats does not solve the problem. According to the booklet, the power is created in the relationship between the two poles, and the base is what makes that relationship possible. Suppose a business that doubled its sales effort and left its foundation untouched. Sales rose, delivery collapsed, and the new clients left faster than they arrived. The booklet shows the same failure from the side of growth. A business in a hurry to get the product out and expand becomes unestablished, and when it starts to boom, the boom itself collapses. Two poles are working hard, with no base to hold them. And the opposite: a business that put everything into foundation and drove no production. It has an aeroplane and no flights. ## Who decides between the three hats In a large business the Executive Director coordinates the three hats. In a small business the Executive Director usually wears the Product Officer hat too, which the booklet calls a normal double hat. It helps to know how the hats rank. The Organizing Officer is not subordinate to the Establishment Officer, and the reverse is also true. The two sit at the same level. The Organizing Officer's boss is the Product Officer, with no direct line to the Executive Director. For a business of one, here is what it means. Wearing the coordinating hat puts you inside none of the three. You are choosing between them, and the booklet says that job needs time of its own. Take a garage owner with two mechanics. He wears all three hats, and the mechanics wear only production. When he goes under a car with a wrench in his hand, all three of his hats stop at once and nobody is left to decide between them. Coordination needs a stretch of time in which you work inside none of the hats. Or an owner who sets aside half an hour every Sunday morning purely to decide what the week goes to: production, organising or foundation. That is the coordinating job. And the opposite case: an owner who decides on the run. The decision always goes to whatever shouts loudest, which means production. The booklet adds a sharp test: can you say when in your week you decide between the three hats? If you cannot, you are reacting to events and not coordinating anything. ## What the booklet has on this This chapter of the booklet has two exercises, an analysis exercise and a do-it exercise. After it, the booklet shows how to organise alongside production without stopping it. You can be excellent at sales and excellent at operations and still never take off. The missing piece is the aeroplane, and more effort in the other two hats will not bring it. - [The Three Hats](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/three-hats): Three names for three jobs, and a diagnosis that tells you which one is missing in your business today. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/three-hats-pilot-without-a-plane) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/three-hats-pilot-without-a-plane)