How Decision Systems Learn What Matters: Building Purpose-Aligned Governance

What organisations learn to measure becomes what they optimise. Institutions do not act on purpose—they act on what becomes measurable. This paper shows how purpose is translated into criteria, metrics, and allocation rules through the Operating Spine. As these representations stabilise, they define what the system learns to prioritise. Alignment is therefore built—or lost—inside the decision architecture itself. About the Coherence ProgrammeThe Coherence Programme studies why institutions drift despite appearing aligned. It shows that decisions are made not on intent itself, but on how intent is translated into criteria, metrics, and allocation rules. Using the Operating Spine, the programme traces how…