The Legibility Tool
Describe the shape of your organisation and see the Expected Operating Level its structure typically demands.
As an organisation grows, the way it holds control has to change with it. Proximity works while everyone is within reach. Beyond that point, control has to be built into the architecture of the business. The Legibility Tool gives you a structural benchmark for where your organisation should be operating, so you can compare it with where it actually is. Guidance on counting Business Units and Functions is built in, and nothing you enter is stored.
Model assumptions
How to answer
Score each statement from 1 to 5 by how consistently it reflects how your organisation actually behaves in practice, not how it is intended to operate or how it is described in policy.
Where something happens occasionally, depends on specific individuals, or varies significantly across teams, do not score it as fully present. That variation is part of what the diagnostic measures. Where the picture is unclear, score what is known.
Answer each statement independently and work through the conditions in order. The most accurate results come from completing it with others.
How to answer
This diagnostic asks one question: what level does your perception naturally operate from under real organisational conditions?
Score each statement by how consistently it is true of you in practice. Answer for a demanding month, when pressure is real, not for a quiet week or for the leader you intend to be. If your calendar would contradict your answer, trust the calendar.
Being able to describe a level is not the same as operating from it. Score what you do first, not what you can explain afterwards. The statements are deliberately mixed.
How to answer
This diagnostic locates you on the Respect Curve in your relationship with your staff, using the four forms of respect: Other, Self, Unity and Individuality.
Score each statement by how consistently it is true of how you work with your staff now, under real pressure, not how you intend to lead. If your team would describe you differently, score what they would see.
Some statements describe being one of the team, or holding on tightly. These are normal stages for a manager, not failings. Answer them honestly.
Your overview
Your position on the Co-Maturation Reference Table
One reading of the complexity your organisation carries, and how far its architecture, your perception and your psychological position have kept pace with it, compiled from all four diagnostics.
Your Reference Table
Co-Maturation, Ch 9: the lowest of your three response columns is your effective legible operating level.
Your four readings
Your pattern
Where the work begins
Cross-checks
The two permanent questions
Return to these whenever complexity moves.
- Where does control actually sit in your organisation?
- What is the abstraction level of the leadership responsible for advancing it?
Co-Maturation, Ch 20
Your next book
This overview is one person's account. Beyond Effort notes that the most accurate results come from completing the diagnostics with others, and being respected is not feeling respected. The instruments are still in development and have not yet been validated. Treat the result as a prompt for reflection, not a verdict.
Optional: borrowed maturity
Six statements on whether capability sits in individuals rather than in your architecture. Any statement you score 4 or 5 adds a note to your overview. Co-Maturation, Ch 14.
A note on the model
This is a legibility tool, not a measure of complexity. Its weights and thresholds are provisional and are being refined against real cases. Treat the result as a benchmark to prompt reflection and conversation, not a verdict.