What is LGM ?
LGM was developed from repeated observations in contractor-intensive, project-based environments.
It makes a narrow, defensible claim: for recurring patterns of behaviour and symptoms, durable improvement depends on changes in lived governance and the structural maturity that governance produces over time, rather than repeated intervention at the symptom layer alone.
Core constructs
-
Sector conditions: the external structural environment that shapes expectations and constraints (e.g., regulatory density, growth rate, contractor market maturity, supply-chain fragmentation, strength of client governance).
-
Structural maturity: an observable state revealed when governance is tested over time and under pressure. High maturity means governance remains operative; low maturity means work defaults to improvisation despite formal systems existing on paper.
-
Governance: the practical organisation of work - structures, decision rights, controls and accountability mechanisms. It has causal force only when it is lived in practice.
-
Behaviour: the visible expression of the structure people are operating inside; treated as an output, not a primary cause.
-
Symptoms: recurring operational patterns and outcomes (e.g., incidents, readiness gaps, audit churn, quality defects, schedule slippage, cost impacts).
Diagnostic flow
(bottom-up)
Start with recurring symptom patterns, describe behavioural adaptation, connect outputs to governance (intended vs lived), assess structural maturity as a state, then situate findings in sector conditions.
Intervention flow
(governance-first)
Assess governance as the baseline, redesign governance and its verification routes, then read behaviour, symptoms and structural maturity as outputs over time.
The diagnostic is structured around Leadbetter’s Governance Model
Sector Conditions → Structural Maturity → Governance → Behaviour → Symptoms
Read from top to bottom, the chain describes how performance emerges. Read from bottom to top, it provides a method for tracing recurring problems back to their structural causes.
One Model, Two Lenses
LGM is applied at two levels.
At the organisational lens, it explains why performance varies across projects and teams and provides a practical diagnostic and intervention logic.
At the sector lens, the same causal logic is applied across multiple organisations over time to describe how sector expectations and “normal” governance evolve.
How LGM is used
LGM is used well when recurring symptoms are translated into deliberate governance changes, and success is judged by whether those changes remain operational under delivery pressure across projects and time.
What LGM is not
-
Not a new management system, maturity scheme, or audit checklist.
-
Not a behavioural or cultural programme.
-
Not a replacement for engineering judgement, technical analysis, or commercial decision-making.
-
Not a claim that every event is structurally caused (one-off deviation and misjudgement will always exist).
Downloads on this page
-
The full LGM paper (PDF).
-
Appendix A: LGM diagrams (structural chain, diagnostic flow, intervention flow, sector lens).
-
Appendix B: illustrative cases (anonymised and composited).
-
Appendix C: structural maturity contrast table (qualitative patterns of low vs high maturity).
Confidentiality and case material
Case material is deliberately anonymised and, where necessary, composited. It illustrates recurring structural patterns rather than documenting any single organisation, project or individual.