12 NEXUS OF POWER TO BRING CHANGE TO A COMPLEX SYSTEM

Donella Meadows is an impressive researcher in the field of complex systems (a

corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem), which in the ’90
distilled years and years of research in something more easily understandable by
anyone: the twelve leverage points to intervene in a system.

Complex systems studies are a big body of knowledge, made even more difficult by
the counter-intuitiveness of many of the rules that regulate them. That’s why I
think Donella made an excellent job here in trying to give an understandable
approach to them, and even more, how to change them.

To understand how complex systems works, she starts by showing a simplified model
of a system and how we can act on it:

The critical point to understand is that we have no direct influence on the state
of the system itself, we can just act on the variables around it. I’ve been asked
in the past how comes you have no direct influence: of course I have direct
influence. With an example it’s simple to see why: if I want to control the
quantity of water in a hoover dam, I can’t directly make the water appear: I can
just control flows of water coming in and out. This process in some cases has very
little delay, so might seem like direct intervention, but it isn’t. Delay is
actually one of the leverage points.
Plus, we can only get a perceived state, not the real state, because its real
state is too complex to get as a whole. By modelling that perceived state and
seeing if it matches with the desired goal, we are then able to influence some
variables in the system, trying to move it in the right direction.
This abstract model works, with the limitations of any model, on any kind of
complex system: from organizations, to the planet as a whole, to teams, to a smart
thermostat, and so on. Any system.

12 Leverage Points
Given we can’t change the system directly, Donella outlined a list variables you
can act upon to influence it. She usually sort the leverage points in reversed
order, to the more basic and least effective to the hardest to change but also
most effective. I’m borrowing a lot of her words here in the attempt to be
succinct but also as high fidelity as possible.

These twelve rules are an incredibly useful breakdown, and I’m sure can help you to
both understand and manage complex systems better — such as an organization or a
team, even if translating them from theory to practice might take some
experimentation and work.

In a sense, the lowest levels of this list are the least effective to change, while
the one at the top are the most effective. To a certain extent however the top
ones, the ones with most leverage, require a wider perspective and often more
power: the goal of a company can be done relatively easier if you’re the CEO, but
requires lots of work and agreement if you’re not.

Thus, the ones that represent a leverage target for everyone are actually the ones
in the middle.

Missing feedback is one of the most common causes of system malfunction. Adding or
restoring information can be a powerful intervention, usually much easier and
cheaper than rebuilding physical infrastructure.
[…]
There is a systematic tendency on the part of human beings to avoid
accountability for their own decisions. That’s why there are so many missing
feedback loops.