Leverage Weekly #58 - The role of structure
tl;dr - Explicit elements of culture act like a scaffold
Every organization, like every country, has its own culture. Each culture is composed of things like values, norms, and assumptions: these tell people, explicitly or implicitly, how they are supposed to act, what they are supposed to do. Cultures also contain ways of managing their values, assumptions, and so forth, so that they can be adjusted as need arises.
Some parts of the culture of an organization are unspoken. These may be the rules or norms of politeness or how acceptable it is to be a few minutes late to a meeting. Other parts are explicit, like the titles and roles, set meeting times, and lines of reporting. In many cases, however, the explicit parts and implicit parts blend together. The explicit rule may be to be on time for meetings, though everyone knows there’s a special exception made when important previous meetings run long.
It can be tempting to go to extremes with explicitness or leaving things implicit. If there’s a special exception for meetings that run long, why not render that an explicit rule? The problem is that the actual facts of a functional culture are extraordinarily complex and the difficult and time-consuming process of rendering them all explicit will itself produce a specific culture, one that may be hard for team members to adapt to. There are organizations that will benefit from extraordinary explicitness, but even in these cases, much will end up unstated.
If some aspects of a culture will be left implicit, why not just leave everything unspoken? In fact, there are some organizational cultures that leave a very large amount unstated, so much so that team members who aren’t supernaturally in touch with expectations can experience substantial stress and disorientation. In reality, the goal should be to strike the right balance between implicit and explicit, which requires taking into account the goal of the organization and its environment and understanding some of the benefits of explicitness.
When elements of culture are explicit, it is easier to focus on them. Since many things will remain implicit, those that are rendered explicit will draw special attention. An organization that has an explicit value of politeness, for instance, will have a culture animated in part by attention to and discussion about what constitutes politeness in a given circumstance. Another organization may have as part of its implicit assumptions that people should be polite. Both may be polite, but the one with the explicit value of politeness will discuss and reflect on it more.
Explicit values and policies do not constitute reality. An organization adopting the explicit value of politeness does not mean that it will be more polite than other organizations, or even polite at all. Similarly, an organization adopting a set of explicit policies does not mean that those policies will be followed. Rather than making a culture be a particular way, explicit elements of culture serve as a reminder, a persistent encouragement to become and be a particular way.
The explicit elements of culture, therefore, act as a special sort of scaffold. If everyone knows how to be polite or courageous, and has the relevant instincts down to the bone, the culture may not need to state those things as values explicitly. On the other hand, if people are far from being polite, or courageous, or honest, having those things as explicit values will just produce a rejection of the values and possibly the utility of having things like explicit values or policies.
Explicitness works best when people are within range of embodying a value, following a policy, or understanding an idea. The explicit elements of culture then scaffold the people’s efforts to learn the values, understand the ideas, and so forth. By stating the right things explicitly, one can create an organizational culture that will encourage current members of the organization in the correct direction, help new members acclimate more easily, and make the work environment easier to navigate for everyone. For people outside the organization, the explicit elements of culture can help signal whether the organization is one that a person would like to be a part of.
Explicit elements of culture act like a scaffold.
At the end of each quarter, the Leverage team’s conversations naturally turn towards planning and reflection. This time, the organization planned for its quarterly retreat well in advance and will be traveling to New Orleans the week after next. Each quarter, the Leverage team does a retreat to think about the previous quarter, decide between options for the next quarter, and see whether a new city might be a good permanent home for the organization.
The last quarter was fruitful. The Quantum Biology Institute is now set up, with a microscope lab in Los Angeles and satellite microbiology lab at JCVI in Maryland. The team has now gotten to work, Clarice Aiello programming the software that will control the microscope at the heart of QBI’s scientific efforts, Alessandro Lodesani doing the preparations needed to train Mike Montague in the application of magnetic fields to samples, and Mike receiving orientation at JCVI. Leverage is now stepping back into more of a consulting role, giving the team space to find its own footing.
The last piece for the initial setup is completing the hiring process for a lead biologist for the microscope lab. Geoff and Oliver will be in LA later this week to help with that. Afterwards, there is a question of whether and how Leverage will be needed going forward. We expect the next quarter will involve putting some finishing touches on the Institute, as well as communicating to the team some of Leverage’s hard-earned organizational knowledge—ideally yielding some explicit pieces of culture. At that point, we’ll evaluate our next steps: the Leverage contract with QBI extends through 2027, but if we finish early, we’re quite happy to declare victory and move on.
Other than QBI work, the whole team worked on the board update for the Q1 2025 board meeting, which is scheduled for next week. Melinda continued working on editing Introspection videos, Geoff made progress on a philosophy of science piece, and Oliver conquered, to his satisfaction at least, his unease with the science of biology. No Leverage-related tokens were launched—at least to our knowledge!
Editor’s note: This was written to cover the week of March 17-21 though was published late.