Organizational governance and legitimacy in the context of polymodernity
Welcome to the post-truth times. We’ve known they’re coming, and this is what they feel like on the inside.
In this series, I’m not going to talk about AI, social media, or politics. Instead, it will be about an unexpected form of “post-truth” that happens in organizations: legitimacy crises.
I will make two main claims:
- Legitimacy issues are tangible and observable. We’ll have to do some ninja moves to manage them in a polymodern/metamodern world.
- Legitimacy can be seen as the mirror of an epistemological crisis – where we disagree on how we know what we know – in organizational governance.
The felt experience: A typical story
Let’s say we’re part of an 8-year-old organization gathering practitioners of a social-spiritual practice; let’s call this fictional organization the empathetic-gathering movement collaborative (EGMC). (In reality, this is a blend of 5 client organizations caught in the same pattern.)
EGMC is full of passionate people. They want to do things right, and they definitely don’t want to repeat the mistakes of business-as-usual. They are skeptical of hierarchies but also want to see things getting done. They love the founder – a charismatic and reasonable man who insists on being equal with everyone else. They know that rejecting a leader out of an anti-hierarchical stance would be reactive, and they want to transcend those ideals.
In the first years, it’s a labor of love with lots of volunteer effort. Soon, some people require paid roles and formal structures, but the group weathers even the difficult conversations. Over time, however, it becomes increasingly unclear who decides what, with some executive decisions by the founder (which leaves a bit of a bad taste), and some long, drawn-out participatory processes (which drained everyone a little). The system begins to feel stuck, and many decisions stall.
The trap: deciding how to decide
The first voices demand a proper governance system that clarifies what gets decided and how. They approach it like any other decision, like what dish to serve for dinner, or which website builder to use: we simply look at the available systems, and then choose the best one, and that’s it.
But that’s practically never what happens because a decision about our governance system is structurally very different from what to cook or how to build the website. Given that the decision of how to decide is a decision itself, it’s a higher-level decision and oddly circular – like having to decide what language we speak in to talk about what language to use.
And the difference is just like the difference between a conversation about what’s true (most conversations) and a conversation about how we know what we know – an epistemological debate.
Not noticing the higher-level nature of the decision of how to decide, organizations walk right into the trap. Here’s what that looks like: a subteam is formed, or a person is appointed to research governance methods. Let’s say they come back with the idea of using sociocracy as the governance framework. They suggest sociocracy and a circle structure and bring lots of good resources and reasons. But the field is split. Some people want a governance system that is less formal; others have heard good things and want to give it a go. The discussion seems to drag along, and after holding back, the founder weighs in, advocating for sociocracy. Now some raise that sociocracy is about equal voice, and they don’t want the founder to make a decision top-down. We’re a collaborative, after all. So another subgroup forms to come up with scenarios, but even before they give their presentation, another subgroup questions why this self-appointed group would be allowed to make a decision on behalf of the whole. Grudgingly, a process is designed to include everyone and “decide together.” Yet, the complexity of talking about governance overwhelms everyone, and the ultimate question is still unclear: every time someone wants to decide who would decide how, someone pulls the rug out from under our feet.
The hall of mirrors
I call this the hall of mirrors. It’s a special kind of hell, and I have become its cartographer. I’ve seen this dynamic at least two dozen times, and it makes you want to bang your head against the wall. Not that that would do anything, because the frustrating thing is that there is no clean solution. It’s like the moment of untetheredness that you feel when you realize that looking up a word in the dictionary just points to other words you’d have to look up in the dictionary. Or when you realize that everything you think might be true can be questioned. It never seems to end. It’s its own form of insanity-provoking because not knowing is one thing, but realizing you can’t know for sure is another.
I’ve quoted this true story before, but it’s the one that fits the best: I had a group tell me verbatim, “Ted, everyone here agrees that we should bring you in to help us with decision-making, but we’re not sure how to make the decision.”
Read that again because there’s a gem hidden in it: it highlights the fact that every individual agreeing is different from the collective “us” making a decision.
“Why not just vote?”
I know some people have an instant reaction to the story: why don’t they just vote? Sure, they could. But saying they could have chosen one model is like saying, “Well, Mr. Descartes, I don’t see the issue here. The world around us is obviously real.”
Even more, if you’re among the people who say “why don’t they just vote,” it reveals what strategy you find legitimate. Majority vote is a form of legitimation that fits well in some contexts. In other contexts, majority vote is considered tyranny of the majority. Consensus can be considered tyranny of the minority, where one person can stall at the cost of the group. Consent decision-making can be considered tyranny of the organization’s aim over the people in it. Asking the founder to decide is another option.
The point is that there are legitimizers that fit into specific worldviews and contexts. In the cooperative movement, one-person-one-vote is considered sacred. In other contexts, asking the elder to decide makes perfect sense. In a purpose-driven software startup, consent and sociocracy might make perfect sense because of the value fit.
And that’s the trap our fictional collaborative EGMC falls into. They keep discussing and proposing. They argue and bring reasons. They run pilots. But the question of “who gets to say how we decide” can never be answered. My guess is that I see half of the organizations in this dilemma flounder and die a slow death, and in the other half, one system somehow comes out on top, often with huge losses. For example, maybe the founder picks a system to save the organization from paralysis, and many people leave because they can’t trust that the founder is truly one among equals.
Four worldviews, four answers to “who decides?”
Here are the governance systems I track. They each have their own worldview they live in; I will use the words from Lene Rachel Andersen in her work on polymodernity: indigenous/tribal (as worldview category), premodern, modern, postmodern.
| Org. legitimacy | |
| Tribal | A tribal thinker might suggest that everyone talk more and invest in relationships. The outcome would be a trust-based system in which governance aligns with the real relationships and trust lines. |
| Premodern | A follower of the premodern code might emphasize the founder’s guidance and invoke “Source” and similar concepts. After all, the founder had the original idea and should be the one to decide. The ideal outcome would be fidelity to the original purpose. |
| Modern | The modern code might champion equal rights and good process and suggest a process design that is fair and independent of any individual. |
| Postmodern | A postmodern thinker would more likely ask who is missing and what power is hidden in the process, and push for equity, while distrusting any fixed structure. It mostly has questions, not answers, but it also has a talent for having valid points to be raised. According to Andersen, postmodernity isn’t able to build at all; it only deconstructs. |
Why several legitimizers means no system
If you’ve ever been part of a legitimacy crisis inside of an organization discussing potential governance systems, you might have heard all those arguments. They all coexist today.
The issue of our times is that we have several legitimizing systems at once. So as soon as you start asking the question “why should we choose this one?”, you have more than one option. And since simple legitimacy requires there to be exactly one answer without doubt, having several systems means you effectively have no system.
Thanks a lot, postmodernity. As an organizational consultant, I hate your know-it-all nihilism!
The effect is organizations that slide into purist ideals but cannot build, because building or deciding anything means being vulnerable to attacks questioning that worldview and therefore that source of legitimacy. If an organization cannot build and decide who decides what, then that organization isn’t able to establish organizational truths. For example, if we cannot decide how we decide, then how would we decide our organizational priorities to be aligned as an organization? Or how do we find a coherent organizational response to a serious conflict? Every time someone makes a proposal, the ground under us will crumble.
A quick detour into epistemology
Let’s do a quick comparison with epistemology. If legitimacy answers “how/who decides how we decide,” epistemology answers “why do we believe this?”
| Epistemology | |
| Tribal | Because people I know and trust, who share my life and place, tell me, and/or I’ve seen it. It’s true if you and I agree on it, and it’s what we can retreat to when facing a confusing post-truth world. |
| Premodern | Because it was revealed or handed down through tradition and authority. No person can verify all they believe by experience or through “first principles,” so lots of our ‘facts’ sit here. |
| Modern | Because it holds up to reason and evidence, and peer-reviewed scientific consensus confirms it. |
| Postmodern | Question everything, especially power structures. Nihilistic stance. |
When the struggles compound
Struggles in epistemology and organizational legitimacy compound. As soon as we talk about organizational legitimacy, people will undermine the truth conditions of what is said. A few examples:
- Statement: “Our governance struggle makes it impossible for us to decide anything.”
Tribal response: “We need to make sure we listen better and increase our connection. That’s the basis for everything else.”
Premodern response: “This is what happens when we drift from why we started. Let’s go back to the founder’s original vision and let them guide us.”
Modern response: “Let’s look at the facts: which decisions stalled, and why? Then we pick the system that best fits and decide by the rules we already have.”
Postmodern response: “Who are you to discern that? Maybe it’s working for others. And what’s your underlying agenda here?” - Statement: “But the board approved that we use sociocracy.”
Tribal response: “The board doesn’t have enough trust to decide this.”
Premodern response: “The founder never signed off on it.”
Modern response: “How can they decide if we haven’t even tried it out?”
Postmodern: “But they didn’t include the silent voices.”
What it feels like from the inside
Some people celebrate the postmodern, deconstructivist turn in organizing and point out that a “liquefaction” of governance breaks open violent institutional structures. But that isn’t neutral either because not being able to cooperate also comes with substantial disadvantages and coordination failures. And coordination failures we get in legitimacy struggles. Lots and lots of them. That’s why the felt experience of being on the inside is confusion, exhaustion, and the infuriating sense that we’re not getting anything meaningful done. We’ll get back to that.
What sounds abstract – VUCA, crisis of epistemology, complexity gap, or polycrisis – from a (pseudo) outsider stance just feels like confusion and a deep fatigue inside a human body. Sometimes I feel like laughing because legitimacy struggles are so silly. And then I feel like crying because it feels like fighting a hurricane with a stick.
Not sure anyone noticed, but I’ve been quiet on here for the last few months. One aspect was being busy. But the truth was that I’ve been tired. Tired on a deeper level. Tired of fighting hurricanes with a stick and tired of trying to believe in “the fight” for good. Tired of listening to different worldviews missing each other or being thrown out like the proverbial baby in the bathwater. Tired of being exposed to the pointlessness of it all.
I wonder if this is just what postmodernity feels like, or whether it’s what the end of a paradigm feels like. Maybe the organizations I work with are a special bubble – highly tuned into systemic failures and very passionate about mission and “doing the right thing”… which easily translates into hyper-postmodern effects like infighting and paralysis. Maybe they’re canaries in the coal mine, and my learnings will help us down the line.
Whether this is the end of a paradigm or a loud corner of one, we need to talk about possible ways out of the maze. And this is where the higher-level order of legitimacy is a gift that keeps giving.
How to build organizational legitimacy: the polymodern move
If we have a defined governance system, the outgoing governance system might be able to legitimize the incoming one. The boss decides to use sociocracy. The elected board designs the process, and so on.
When there is no system (I call that the “blob” in Collective Power), we have to work extra hard, but it’s generally useful to legitimize the system using several axes (see From Here to There, chapter 2.4):
- Legitimacy through a higher moral standard (somewhat tribal, maybe premodern)
- Legitimacy through external authority (premodern)
- Legitimacy through a ‘good’ process (modern)
- Legitimacy through good results (modern as well)
Spaghetti against the wall instead of eggs in one basket
If we choose only one and put our eggs in one basket, legitimacy can easily be undermined, and postmodernity will add the last straw. So if the tribal, premodern, and modern legitimation mechanisms aren’t enough on their own, we need to combine them.
This is, in essence, a polymodern stance. Instead of deciding which one is “right,” we see that each one answers a different question people are quietly asking: Is this the right thing to do? Who allowed it? Was it fair? Does it work? No single source can answer all four. A polymodern stance builds legitimacy on all of them at once, so that when someone attacks one, the others still hold.
That sounds easy – and it is also my organizational practice. I’d effectively describe it like this: if the legitimacy puzzle is unclear, I look for puzzle pieces using all axes, and throw them at the organization like spaghetti against the wall until enough of them stick, and the questioning stops. I help design processes, invite founders to give blessings, let groups write why-this-governance-method papers, design rituals, and give reasons. All of it.
The catch: legitimacy only works if we believe it
But here is another catch. There is a real reason why this cannot work: legitimacy only works if we accept it as true. Let’s take another detour into epistemology to see why. If you believe everything your elders say, then your world is easy and truth is within reach. (I’m simplifying. Cut me some slack for the sake of the argument.)
“The elders said so” is a real answer. But as soon as there is just a grain of doubt, and you hear somewhere that not all people believe that elders are always right, you will question some of the “truths” they give you. And once Pandora’s box is opened, it never stops; now all “truths” are up for grabs, and knowing seems further out of reach.
The reason “knowing” worked was because you were unaware of the fact that the “premodern” worldview saying that elders are always right was just a worldview. As soon as you know, there is doubt. (Until you find a new belief system that becomes invisible again.)
The same is true with legitimacy. But if I throw legitimizing attempts against the wall like wet spaghetti, then the client organization sees what I’m doing. The more I throw, the more I show how many options of legitimizing there are. Therefore, I cannot tell them that this is what we’re doing. Because believing it is part of it.
And that’s where poly/metamodernity comes in again. Because one of the insights there is that we need to hold both the earnest belief and the doubt in arbitrariness both at once.
So I have to be honest and upfront while being dishonest and secretive at the same time. In my role, that feels a little like helping the emperor with no clothes pick an outfit, but that might just be a cynical stance fed by my fatigue of doing exactly that.
A prettier way of saying it would be that I listen for which sources of legitimacy your group can sincerely stand behind, and we strengthen those. And that’s not wrong either.
Choosing to believe
Because ultimately, a polymodern stance is to choose to believe in those human-made constructs. Because if we deconstruct institutions, many needs go unmet as well. Institutions as places of coordination and mutual care contribute a lot to our wellbeing, and that’s true no matter whether their founding “legitimacy” is epistemologically solid or not. After all, not committing is also a choice; not deciding is also a choice. And there is no high horse of choices without tradeoffs, and no outsider know-it-alls.
For example, we all know that fiat currency is a game. But I once met a Buddhist monk who told me he “doesn’t do money.” Yet he had a ticket to fly to Thailand for further training, and I strongly assume the airline ticket required a credit card. So someone bought the ticket. That’s not criticism, just acknowledgement.
In the same way, “we don’t do hierarchy” is basically always a half-truth. I’d rather acknowledge when hierarchy is used as a chosen strategy. The same goes for “the founder is equal” instead of acknowledging that the founder uses his charisma to successfully talk to funders and therefore holds outsized power over what internal projects are funded. Accordingly, “we don’t have bosses, the mission is our boss” needs to acknowledge that “mission” hardly gives clean answers, and decisions with tradeoffs need to have a person or group taking responsibility for either choice.
Let’s be honest and say that we made choices. Yes, choices are hardly ever clean. The child is right that the emperor has no clothes. But the child also needs a school, a clinic, and people who keep both running. We can question education systems, governments, fiat money, and everything. Seeing through the game doesn’t put us outside of the game.
So maybe the honest choice isn’t to stop playing. It’s to pick a game worth playing, play it for real.
Good-enough governance brings back meaning
Our fictional organization, EGMC, for example, doesn’t need a perfect governance system. They need one that enough of them can stand behind often enough with a legitimacy setup that works: the founder’s blessing, a process people experience as fair, a pilot with a review date, and a shared sense that it’s worth trying. That gives the organization an optimal grip so things can get done. And that means putting legitimacy questions aside once answered in a way that’s good enough. Because if we ask all the questions all the time, we can’t act.
Some of them won’t forget that it’s been constructed all along. They’ll commit anyway. It’s believing again, just on purpose.
That’s what post-legitimacy might be. It’s the legitimacy after the loss of blind belief. It’s chosen instead of inherited; it’s plural instead of single-sourced, openly known to be made out of spaghetti, and yet freely committed to.
Meaning doesn’t come from having made the “right” choice, but from building organizations that help us do things we truly care about doing.
Lene Rachel Andersen (2023). Polymodernity: Meaning and hope in a complex world. Nordic Bildung.
