Society · Coordination
Laterality
The number of functional units that must coordinate for an action to happen; the more units, the less likely it happens
Definition
Mechanism
For any action an organisation must perform, count the functional units (people, teams, departments, cells, genes) that have to coordinate to achieve it: unilateral (one), bilateral (two), trilateral and upward. Each extra unit is another party whose availability, communication and agreement are needed, so the odds that the action happens easily fall like rolling a double six instead of a seven: there are fewer ways for everything to line up. A well-designed organisation is one in which the bulk of required actions are unilateral, most of the rest bilateral, and so on, and in which units that must coordinate are already closely related. Laterality also applies to changes of strategy: the number of agents that must change strategy when the situation changes.
Invariants
- The probability that an action happens easily falls as laterality rises
- Coordinating between closely related units is easier than between distant units at the same laterality
- Laterality applies to changes of strategy as well as to actions
Risks
Failure modes
Designing a plan that silently depends on many units being available at fixed times (high laterality disguised as a schedule)
Creating a dedicated team for one priority, which raises laterality for every other task
Leaving no low-laterality way to stop an action, so failing work continues
Relationships
Root pattern: builds on nothing in this library.
Used by
References
Pre-position part of a possible future configuration so that, when the game changes, most agents already fit the new optimum and only the remaining fraction must change strategy
Build in points where one party alone can stop or change course, so that ending an activity never needs everyone to switch at once
A task with many noisy pathways happens reliably by the law of large numbers, without a single accountable owner
A pure coordination game in which the best joint strategy keeps changing, so the key is how cheaply players can move to the next game
Every organisational structure makes some tasks 'losers' with high laterality and weak communication; reorganising only moves the problem
Unplanned but necessary information travels on top of regular primary communication
Predict resources over the long range, and leave the shape of the work free to follow short-range information
Reference