It’s easy to analyse a system—whether an organisation, structure, or process—from the outside and identify areas for improvement. These recommendations might be based on logic, experience, or data, and on paper, they may seem like clear wins.
But in reality, implementing improvements can be far more challenging than expected. Resistance, leadership gaps, or internal politics are often blamed, but the real issue is deeper.
Every system is shaped by unseen forces—historical decisions, cultural norms, and undocumented factors that influence how things work. There is always a cost to intervention, and if we ignore the real drivers behind the current system, we risk overlooking the forces that will shape its future too.
