Tokens and money screw up a lot of thinking about DAOs. The word “value” gets hijacked to equate success with “token goes up”. For DAOs to realize their potential, they must move past this to identify what value truly means to its members.

To make value clear, a notion from Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey is useful - the call to adventure. The best way to get to a common view of value in a DAO is to have a shared vision that guides everything the DAO does. But if we want this to scale, by definition that vision has to be bigger than what the DAO can ever fulfill. Otherwise, we top out and lose our way.

Vision statements get a bad rap in many circles, and deservedly so. However, the concept is still helpful if we approach it the right way. The best approach I have seen is by a woefully underappreciated thinker named Tom Graves, who talks about vision as part of a larger concept of "Vision, Roles, Mission, and Goals".

To reduce the risk of lousy vision statements, let's coin the term "adventure-vision" to apply Graves' concept of enterprise-vision to DAOs. As he puts it, the adventure-vision describes a desired world, ideally no more than half a dozen words, about the 'what', 'how' and 'why'. I love how he describes it as a way of saying "this is what interests us - and if this interests you too, perhaps you should speak with us.”

A key point is that this adventure-vision DOES NOT CHANGE. It serves as an attractor that enables a common orientation as we grow into multiple pods, an ecosystem of DAOs, and a changing world all around us. Now the link to decision making is clear via OODA. A common orientation helps us better interpret observations, make good choices, and execute effectively.

Creating a DAO without being clear on the adventure-vision leads to failure. That's one of the reason why financially-oriented DAOs may tend to hold together better. In that case, the adventure-vision is more consistent since getting rich is pretty interesting!

Once an adventure-vision is set, a DAO then needs to identify the role(s) it will play in the adventure-vision. What will it do, and not do, to bring about that world? This is where strategy is useful. Again, the term is horribly abused, but I like Richard P. Rumelt's notion, shared in "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy", can be roughly summed up as a diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent actions.

• Diagnosis can be thought of as what is preventing the adventure-vision from being real. It's a simple, understandable story that suggests the role(s) the DAO might play in bringing the adventure-vision to life.
• Guiding policy in a DAO would primarily focus on setting constraints from a risk and resource cost perspective. Just like in nature, we must survive long enough to make an impact or pass along our genes. This provides the "not do" that complements the "do" from the diagnosis.
• Coherent actions come from the diagnosis and guiding policy. The more the DAO's actions support each other, the bigger the DAO's impact will be on the adventure-vision.

A DAO that embraces its adventure-vision and the role it will play in bringing it about is a force to be reckoned with.