2 docs tagged with "complex-systems"

Leverage Points are the places in a system where a small shift can produce large, lasting changes in system behavior. Donella Meadows identified 12 leverage points in order of increasing power — from adjusting numbers (low leverage) to changing the paradigm underlying the system (highest leverage). Most interventions target low-leverage points; the highest-impact interventions are often counterintuitive and politically uncomfortable.

Resilience Thinking is a framework for designing and managing systems that can absorb disruption, adapt, and recover — rather than systems that are optimized purely for efficiency. Developed primarily in ecology (C.S. Holling, 1973) and extended to organizations and infrastructure, it argues that efficiency and resilience are in fundamental tension, and that over-optimization for efficiency systematically reduces a system's ability to handle shocks.