Systems strive for self-preservation

When you’re attempting to change a system, remember that a system’s primary directive is to preserve itself. Unfortunately, this tendency can and often does become unhealthy if the system is optimizing for short-term comfort at the expense of long-term survival, or if it is acting on bad information.

A couple of examples:

• The CEO who is running their startup into the ground because they don’t know how to delegate and have become a bottleneck for the entire team.
• The founder who is stubbornly pursuing a “premiumization” strategy for their consumer brand despite mounting pricing pressure on the entire category.

To effectively fix a system that is acting erratically in an attempt for self-preservation, you need to learn how to swim downstream in the system.

References

• Seek First to Understand