The framework behind the Coherence Level
How Coherence Signals turns invisible organizational forces into seven measurable conditions, one weighted score and a set of rules for reading it.
Organizational physics
A working metaphor, not a claim that physical laws govern people.
Organizations behave less like fixed structures and more like dynamic systems held together by forces. Organizational gravity is the pull that keeps people connected to a team and its purpose. It is strong when purpose, leadership trust, role clarity and social connection line up, and it weakens as uncertainty, conflict, inequity and unmanaged change accumulate.
Five kinds of force do most of the work:
- Relational: trust, belonging and team connection.
- Directional: clarity of goals, priorities and decision-making.
- Psychological: safety, fairness and perceived support.
- Structural: role definition, workload balance and communication flow.
- Leadership: consistency, responsiveness and transparency.
The survey translates these forces into seven dimensions that can be measured every cycle and compared across teams and levels.
Seven dimensions, 21 statements
Each dimension has three statements, one of them reverse-worded to check response quality. Weights reflect where each signal sits in the destabilization sequence.
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1. ConnectionStatements 1, 2, 3Whether people feel connected to their team and the organization.Early lateral signal; peers continue reporting to each other while upward suppression occurs.16%
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2. ClarityStatements 4, 5, 6Whether people understand goals, priorities, and how decisions get made.Leads recovery; action-responsive; moderately early destabilization signal.15%
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3. Psychological SafetyStatements 7, 8, 9Whether people feel safe speaking up, raising concerns, and being honest.Earliest signal; slow recovery; suppressed upward before lateral.20%
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4. Change StabilityStatements 10, 11, 12Whether people feel informed, supported, and steady during organizational change.Cumulative pattern signal; single episodes are correctable; repeated episodes indicate structural leadership trust deterioration.8%
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5. Leadership ResponseStatements 13, 14, 15Whether people believe leaders will act on concerns and follow through.Hardest to recover; cumulative trust erosion; pattern-dependent.18%
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6. Future ConfidenceStatements 16, 17, 18Perceived stability and confidence in the organization's near-term direction.Lagging reflection of other dimension deterioration; perceptually volatile; responds to information rather than relationship repair.5%
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7. Equity & AccountabilityStatements 19, 20, 21Whether standards, recognition, and opportunity are distributed fairly and consistently.Upstream precursor; favoritism and inconsistency drive multi-dimensional deterioration; underreported in active surveys.18%
Equity & Accountability was added in v1.2. It captures upstream precursors seen in inpatient, residential and outpatient settings: favoritism, cliques that exclude team members, strong performers who are not stretched, and weak performance that goes uncorrected.
Calculating the Coherence Level
Scoring follows the same four steps for an individual, a team or a whole organization:
- Reverse-worded statements (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 and 21) are inverted so a higher number always means a more stable condition.
- The three statements in each dimension are averaged.
- Each dimension average is converted from the 1 to 5 scale to 0 to 100.
- The seven dimension scores are combined using the weights above.
| Coherence Level | Reading |
|---|---|
| Strong coherence 75–100 | Conditions for team stability are well established. Focus on sustaining what is working. |
| Moderate coherence 55–74 | Core conditions are present, but some dimensions show vulnerability. Targeted support in lower-scoring areas will strengthen stability. |
| Fragile coherence 35–54 | Significant instability signals are present across several dimensions. A proactive leadership response is indicated. |
| Critical instability 0–34 | Conditions indicate high risk of team disruption and departure. Structured intervention is indicated now. |
Compensation is deliberately excluded. In the framework it is a threshold variable, measured by the separate Compensation Threshold Indicator, because pay sits outside a team manager's span of control.
Rules for reading the scores
A score on its own can mislead. These interpretive rules from instrument v1.2 run automatically on every organization dashboard.
Equity–Safety divergence
When Psychological Safety is low and the favoritism statement (21) reads neutral or positive, the neutral reading may reflect suppression. Staff who have learned the environment is unsafe rarely report favoritism candidly.
Change Stability pattern
A single-cycle dip calls for monitoring and a communication audit. Three or more consecutive declines are treated as a Leadership Response and trust issue, not a change-management one.
Alignment Gap sensitivity
In clinical and high-acuity settings, staff hold concerns laterally with trusted peers before they surface upward. A sudden widening of the staff-to-leader gap usually means the problem has been present for some time.
Five-person minimum
No group's results are reported until at least five people in it have responded in that cycle. Smaller groups are combined rather than shown.
Beyond the pulse survey
The wider measurement architecture, Exit Signal Framework v1.2.
Exit Signal and the Departure Signal Quotient
Exit data is retrospective and comes from people no longer subject to the social pressures that suppress candor, so it is never folded into the Coherence Level. It runs as a parallel signal. The Departure Signal Quotient (DSQ) combines how deteriorated each condition was (Experience, E) with how much it drove the decision to leave (Departure weight, D):
DSQ = Σ(Ei × Di × Wi) / ΣWi, across the seven dimensions.
DSQ weights are raised for Psychological Safety, Leadership Response and Equity & Accountability, which are under-reported while staff are still employed.
Compensation Threshold Indicator
Two statements on pay and benefits, averaged and reported as Green (above 3.5), Amber (2.5 to 3.5) or Red (below 2.5) beside the Coherence Level. Read together, the two show whether instability is relational, compensation-driven, or both compounding.
Predictive Accuracy Index
When exit data confirms the dimensions the Coherence Level flagged before departures, the model is working. A PAI of 0.70 or above indicates an effective early-warning instrument for that setting; below 0.60 triggers a weight review.
Supporting indicators
| Indicator | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Alignment Gap | Difference in Coherence Level between role levels: individual contributors, managers and senior leaders. |
| Change Load Signal | Strain associated with ongoing change, read from Change Stability over time. |
| Psychological Safety Signal | Confidence in speaking up and being heard without negative consequence. |
| Response Trust Signal | Belief that leadership will act on concerns, read from Leadership Response. |
| Future Confidence Signal | Perceived stability of the organization over the next three to six months. |
See the framework from the inside
Answer the 21 statements yourself and see how the scoring and interpretation work.