Here are some notes I took and I was curious if this resonates…
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Using Ichak Adizes’ “Managing Corporate Life Cycles,” model, we can see that the first “Courtship” phase is defined by a focus on possibilities rather than structure. This aligns somewhat with my model of Values in which they may not work great for an org at a later stage of maturity, but work fine enough for a young one. Or they may work even BETTER than other types of structures because they are more about defining “who we are,” and using that defined identity as a means of conveying a gestalt of broad expectations.
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In effect, when used this way, Values function as a combination of 1) non-binding frames-of-reference, and also 2) binding expectations. And if so, they are also functioning like Laws in that they are intended to be binding deal-breakers, whereas pure Values are not. We could call this application, “Value-Laws.”
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It makes sense practically as well that Value-Laws may be better than Rules because of the administrative and energy cost required to legitimize structures. Or it could just be that, following the SOC principle of “don’t artificially pursue structure,” that explicit structures are just not that important for groups with lots of shared implicit context.
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It also may be that an organization in Courtship or Infancy may even call things “Rules,” but will enact them as Value-Laws. I think of it in terms of what is necessary for legitimacy. In the case of a small and new organization, legitimacy may be implicit in the personal relationships among the founders or the clear power dynamics between founders and early employees.