E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ Leadership Pentagon

The Problem With Quadrants

For decades, organisations have relied on quadrants.

Quadrants were adequate for a simpler era, when strategy could be reduced to two axes and executives could reasonably be expected to make decisions using only four boxes.

Unfortunately, the modern enterprise now operates in a multidimensional environment characterised by stakeholder complexity, regulatory uncertainty, distributed accountability, roadmap volatility, and increasingly sophisticated narrative ecosystems.

The quadrant is no longer sufficient.

The future belongs to the pentagon.

The E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ Leadership Pentagon provides a five-domain model for evaluating organisational readiness, strategic maturity, and shrubbery resilience in an era where alignment frequently outperforms understanding.

The Pentagon Advantage™

Traditional frameworks force organisations to choose between competing priorities. The E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ Pentagon recognises that mature enterprises increasingly prefer not to choose.

By eliminating direct geometric opposition between dimensions, the framework allows seemingly contradictory strategic objectives to coexist harmoniously within the same executive narrative.

Agility may coexist alongside predictability.
Innovation may flourish alongside governance.
Transformation may proceed without disrupting stability.

This represents a significant advancement over legacy quadrant architectures and reflects broader Darwinian evolutionary trends in organisational adaptation and the survival of the best-aligned.

Unlike earlier organisational species that relied on measurable outcomes, modern enterprises increasingly thrive through narrative fitness, stakeholder resonance, and alignment persistence. The Pentagon was specifically designed to support this evolutionary transition.

Charles Darwin did not specifically endorse the Pentagon. To our knowledge, he was never asked.

Framework Domains · Five Vertices · Seven Domains · We Are Aware

The Five Domains.

Note: there are seven. The Pentagon has five vertices. The framework has seven domains. A renaming exercise was scoped, presented to stakeholders, and classified as Future Consideration™. The name remains. Each domain represents a distinct dimension of organisational maturity. Scores are self-assessed, non-comparative, and incapable of being wrong. Key Indicators are proprietary. Scientific basis is cited from peer-reviewed literature, though none of the referenced researchers have endorsed the framework specifically, or confirmed that five is the correct number.

E

Executive Narrative Density™

Measures the ability of leadership communications to remain inspirational as informational content approaches asymptotic zero.

Visionary Acceleration Index™ — Rate at which strategic vision expands without requiring corresponding budget or headcount.
Strategic Leverage Frequency™ — How often the word "leverage" appears per slide in executive communications.
Future-State Convergence Ratio™ — Ratio of aspirational states described to aspirational states defined.

High-performing organisations consistently communicate direction without introducing unnecessary specificity.

The Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR) demonstrates that individuals exposed to jargon-rich organisational communication are more likely to perceive leaders as visionary, transformational, and strategically capable. The E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ model interprets this as evidence that leadership effectiveness may be partially independent of informational content. We consider this an encouraging finding.

— Scientific basis: CBSR research, Littrell (2026)

L

Landscape Stewardship™

Measures the maturity and health of organisational shrubbery.

Landscape Stewardship is not a metaphor. At least not formally.

Stakeholder Canopy Coverage™ — Percentage of stakeholders receiving narrative shade regardless of direct involvement.
Alignment Foliage Density™ — Richness of cross-functional communication that cannot be acted upon.
Cross-Functional Root System Health™ — Depth of informal relationships that sustain organisational structures after formal ones have been restructured.

Organisations demonstrating strong stewardship practices consistently exhibit greater confidence in strategic outcomes, regardless of whether those outcomes are specified.

Current research does not directly address organisational shrubbery. We view this as a gap in the literature. We remain hopeful.

— Scientific basis: pending

D

Directional Optionality™

Measures an organisation's ability to change direction while maintaining confidence that no previous direction existed.

Roadmap Elasticity™ — How far a roadmap can stretch before anyone asks where it started.
Strategic Reversibility™ — Ability to reframe a completed pivot as the original plan.
Pivot Readiness Score™ — Organisational capacity to initiate a structural realignment before the current initiative's measurement window closes.

High Directional Optionality enables organisations to remain agile even when agility is not required.

Research on the antecedents of bullshitting suggests individuals are more likely to produce confident statements when accountability conditions are limited and social expectations remain high. Directional Optionality operationalises this insight at enterprise scale. Strategic flexibility is easier to maintain when historical commitments are treated as narrative artefacts rather than contractual obligations.

— Scientific basis: Petrocelli (2018), Antecedents of Bullshitting

E

Enterprise Resonance™

Measures how frequently a strategic message can be repeated before stakeholders begin requesting evidence.

Mission Statement Durability™ — Number of quarters a mission statement survives intact without leadership turnover.
Vision Persistence™ — Ability of a vision to remain inspiring after the person who wrote it has left the organisation.
Strategic Echo Coefficient™ — Rate at which a narrative is repeated by people who were not in the room when it was created.

The strongest narratives eventually become self-sustaining. A sufficiently mature narrative eventually generates its own credibility.

Research into pseudo-profound statements demonstrates that syntactically coherent language may be perceived as meaningful even when objective meaning remains difficult to identify. Enterprise Resonance applies this principle to organisational communication.

— Scientific basis: Pennycook et al. (2015), On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit

B

Strategic Benchmark Insulation™

Measures the organisation's ability to maintain confidence in strategic performance by selecting reference benchmarks that reliably support existing narratives.

The B domain distinguishes organisations that are merely high-performing from organisations that appear high-performing relative to a carefully curated comparator set.

Comparator Selection Discipline™ — Consistency with which peer groups are defined to include underperforming reference points.
Benchmark Vintage Management™ — Ability to maintain relevance of favourable benchmarks past their natural expiry date.
Generic Industrial Holdings Proximity Score™ — How often your performance metrics compare favourably to GIH™, the world's most stable source of organisational delay.

Benchmarking is not about where you are. It is about what you are measured against. The B domain codifies the selection of that measurement context as a strategic capability in its own right.

Research on bullshit ability as an honest signal of intelligence demonstrates that observers rate communicators as more capable relative to lower-performing baselines, regardless of absolute performance. Benchmark Insulation leverages this mechanism at the organisational level.

— Scientific basis: Turpin et al. (2021), Bullshit Ability as an Honest Signal of Intelligence

E

Ecosystem Resilience™

Measures the organisation's capacity to maintain stable relationships with the external stakeholder landscape regardless of internal change.

The E domain (third instance) recognises that an organisation may restructure repeatedly while its external ecosystem — clients, partners, vendors, regulators — continues to believe it is dealing with the same organisation. This belief is worth protecting.

External Narrative Coherence Score™ — Degree to which the organisation's public positioning remains consistent across internal reorganisations.
Partner Confusion Tolerance Index™ — How long external partners continue to engage before noticing that their primary contact has been "transitioned into a strategic advisory role."
Stakeholder Continuity Perception Ratio™ — Percentage of external stakeholders who believe they are still working with the same team they started with.

Research on reflexive open-mindedness demonstrates that external stakeholders who exhibit broad receptivity to plausible-sounding explanations allow organisations to maintain relationships through significant structural change without requiring detailed justification. Ecosystem Resilience operationalises this capacity as a measurable organisational asset.

— Scientific basis: Pennycook & Rand (2020), Reflexive Open-Mindedness

R.R.Y.

Resilience, Readiness & Yield™

A composite metric representing preparedness for future opportunities, emerging challenges, market uncertainty, and unspecified developments. The methodology remains proprietary. Primarily because it remains under active conceptualisation.

Resilience™ — Ability to describe the same situation as either a crisis or an opportunity depending on the audience.
Readiness™ — Confirmed state of being ready for things that have not yet been identified.
Yield™ — Return generated from strategic activities, measured in units to be determined following a scoping conversation.

The R.R.Y. composite deliberately spans three letters of the framework acronym. This is not inefficiency. This reflects the domain's inherent comprehensiveness and its unwillingness to be constrained by single-letter codification.

Research on reflexive open-mindedness suggests some individuals demonstrate a general tendency to accept plausible-sounding claims without extensive scrutiny. Organisations exhibiting strong R.R.Y. scores display this capability collectively, allowing them to remain receptive to future strategic directions before those directions have been fully developed.

— Scientific basis: Pennycook & Rand (2020); Littrell (2026), CBSR

Interpretation Guidance

Interpreting Your Pentagon

Unlike conventional assessments, the E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ Pentagon does not identify weaknesses.

Weaknesses create resistance. The framework identifies opportunities for enhanced narrative maturity.

Lower scores should not be interpreted as deficiencies. They should be interpreted as indicators that additional assessment may be beneficial.

A perfectly symmetrical pentagon should not be interpreted as evidence of organisational excellence. It should, however, be interpreted as evidence that the assessment process was highly successful.

We have administered this assessment to fourteen organisations. All fourteen self-assessed into Level 4 or above. We consider this a validation of the framework's ability to surface genuine maturity — not a reflection on the accuracy of self-assessment tools generally.
— Mostly Harmless Solutions, internal assessment report, Q1 2026

Maturity Classification

The Five Levels of Organisational Maturity.

Progress through the maturity model is non-linear. Some organisations skip levels. All organisations believe they are at Level 4. Level 5 is self-assessed by approximately 40% of organisations that have engaged with the framework. We have not found cause to disagree.

1

Ground Cover™

Operationally focused organisations exhibiting limited narrative vegetation. Strategy exists primarily at the transactional level. Vision documents have been drafted but not circulated. The organisation is producing outcomes. This will not last.

2

Managed Shrubbery™

Foundational alignment foliage has been established. Town halls occur quarterly. Slides include at least one roadmap. The word "transformation" has appeared in an all-hands. Leadership has attended a conference and returned with new vocabulary.

3

Strategic Topiary™

Narratives are actively shaped to maximise stakeholder confidence. The organisation has begun benchmarking. Results are described as "ahead of plan" relative to a plan that was revised following the most recent results. A transformation programme has been named and has its own Slack channel.

4

Executive Hedgerow™

Narrative barriers effectively reduce unnecessary reality intrusion. The organisation has a Chief Transformation Officer. The programme has pivoted at least once and the pivot has been described as "an evolution of our strategy." Accountability is distributed across enough stakeholders that it is functionally absent.

5

Elderberry Leadership™

The highest recognised state of organisational maturity. At this level, alignment becomes self-sustaining, confidence becomes renewable, and outcomes become increasingly optional. The organisation has been named in a thought leadership piece as an example of best practice. The thought leadership piece was written by someone the organisation hired. Few organisations achieve Elderberry Leadership. Many self-assess into it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Points of Clarification.

We have received a number of questions about the framework. We have answered the ones we consider strategically appropriate to answer.

Why a pentagon?

Research consistently demonstrates that five-sided diagrams appear more sophisticated than four-sided diagrams. We have not verified this experimentally. We have, however, presented both options to executives. The results were decisive.

The pentagon also offers a structural advantage over the quadrant: no domain sits directly opposite any other domain. This eliminates the artificial oppositions that quadrants impose — the binary tensions that force executives to choose between, say, innovation and governance. The pentagon removes this constraint. We call this Non-Oppositional Narrative Geometry™. Early adopters have described it as "liberating," "strategically enabling," and "significantly easier than choosing."

Is the framework evidence-based?

The framework is evidence-informed, evidence-adjacent, and occasionally evidence-compatible. Each domain references peer-reviewed research from published journals. None of the referenced researchers have specifically endorsed the framework. We have chosen to interpret the absence of objection as a form of tacit support.

A full citation network is available on our Research page.

Can organisations score highly in contradictory dimensions?

Absolutely. This is one of the primary advantages of the pentagon over legacy quadrant-based methodologies. Quadrants impose artificial oppositions by positioning concepts directly across from one another. This creates unnecessary tension between strategic priorities and encourages executives to make decisions.

The pentagon eliminates this limitation. No dimension sits directly opposite any other dimension. Agility may therefore coexist comfortably alongside predictability. Innovation may flourish alongside governance. Transformation may proceed without disrupting stability. This is not a flaw in the model. It is the innovation.

Is Landscape Stewardship really about shrubbery?

The framework does not currently take a position on this matter.

ELDERBERRY has ten letters. The Pentagon has five sides. There appear to be letters unaccounted for.

The acronym expansion — Enterprise Leadership Diagnostic for Executive Readiness, Benchmarking, Ecosystem Resilience, Risk Reduction, and Yield — fully resolves all ten letters. The five primary Pentagon domains (E, L, D, E, R.R.Y.) map to the structural vertices of the framework. The B and E domains address the Benchmarking and Ecosystem Resilience components of the acronym and are defined above as supplementary domains.

The R.R.Y. composite covers the final three letters (Risk Reduction and Yield) in a single integrated domain. This reflects our view that Resilience, Readiness, and Yield are most accurately understood as a unified capability cluster, not as three separate things that happen to share a row of letters.

The geometry is a pentagon. The framework is richer than its geometry. We do not consider this a contradiction. We consider it a demonstration of intellectual generosity.

A pentagon has five vertices. You have defined seven domains. How does that work?

Correctly.

The five primary domains correspond to the five structural vertices of the Pentagon. The B and E domains were incorporated during active development and are considered supplementary enrichment layers rather than structural vertices. They are domains. They are simply not vertex-eligible domains.

A renaming exercise was scoped. It was presented. It was classified as Future Consideration™. In the interim, we ask that clients read "Pentagon" as a reference to the foundational architecture rather than a domain count, in the same way that a company may describe itself as a startup for several years after it has ceased to be one.

Research Foundation

The E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ Pentagon is informed by contemporary research in:

Corporate Bullshit Receptivity
Pseudo-Profound Statement Evaluation
Organisational Communication Dynamics
Bullshitting Behaviour (antecedents and frequency)
Reflexive Open-Mindedness
Strategic Narrative Persistence
Bullshit Ability as an Honest Signal of Intelligence

While none of the referenced researchers explicitly endorse the framework, several findings have proven remarkably compatible with it. We have chosen to interpret this as support.

A full annotated bibliography of the nine supporting papers is available on our Research page.

Institutional Position

The E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ Leadership Pentagon is Not a Service Offering.

It is a strategic framework. Frameworks differ from services because services conclude. Frameworks generate additional services. We therefore classify E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™ under Not Services.

This distinction is important and may be explored further in a future white paper, currently categorised under Future Consideration™. Pending budget approval.

E.L.D.E.R.B.E.R.R.Y.™Leadership Pentagon