Building Resilience into the Core of Systems

Donella Meadows, co-author of the famous Limits to Growth study and author of Thinking in Systems, argues the greatest leverage points either change the mindset from which a system arises or, even better, allow transcendence of mindsets (paradigms) to choose whichever paradigm will help achieve your purpose.¹

For most of human history, risk management was a nebulous or primarily intuitive concept, as covered masterfully by Peter L. Bernstein in his book Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. Only after the adoption of Hindu/Arabic numbers did formal probabilistic thinking arise from gambling observations. 

Since then, although risk management has enabled financial markets and new ventures at scales not previously practical, it has chased innovation. From explorers sailing into the unknown to tech entrepreneurs building machines to connect the world and filter information at superhuman speed, innovation and progress raced forward, often heedless of their impact and the reverberations it would have.

The catch-up conundrum

Risk management aims to keep risk within an appetite and tolerances. Risk appetite and tolerances may be set by international standards organizations, by national, state, or local laws and regulations, by companies, or by individuals.

But risk has a habit of ballooning when it encounters favorable circumstances. So, an innovation from one company can enter the consumer sphere, be copied and improved on by competitors, see mass adoption, and by the time risk managers at industry or government levels see it manifest, they are playing catch-up and taking on the unpopular task of trying to take away the punch bowl at the party. 

A different path

Meadows’ leverage-point theory offers a different way. And we need it, because we are entering an age of AI and biotech sea change at the same time that sea levels are rising worldwide. The next thirty years will be interesting, scary, and critical. And beyond that, change will remain constant, as it has been from the Big Bang until now. To believe we can live in a static universe, no matter how great or terrible, is to turn away from all prior evidence. 

Risk management must keep up. One possible way to change the risk management mindset is to evolve beyond the catch-up game and embed risk management into society and culture, not as an afterthought or a cost center but as a fundamental key to resilient innovation. As just a few examples:

• Innovators would consider it while building something rather than scrambling to meet tacked-on requirements after the fact.

• Legislators would consider it while writing bills rather than scrambling to work around sub-optimal bill language in the rule-making phase.

• Designers would consider it while storyboarding projects.

In other words, we’d build for resilience, not build to show strength or grandeur on the surface, but to embody it at the inner core.

Rethinking minimum viable product

In this paradigm shift, “minimum viable product” would come to mean a strong inner core that could be expanded in countless permutations, not a prototype held together with baling wire, duct tape, and inexpert code and then added onto piecemeal like a Frankenstein’s monster.

This model, of a resilient inner core that enables future adaptability without massive rework, is in line not with how humans typically build prototypes, but with how living beings are structured. The core of life on Earth is relatively simple²: Four DNA nucleic acids (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine) are transcribed to four RNA nucleic acids (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil). Those RNA nucleic acids are arranged in 64 possible permutations of three base pairs called codons, which are translated to produce just 20 amino acids. 

This system is contained and resilient to errors, yet it generates a dizzying array of proteins—many thousands in humans—that play roles in biological pathways along with other molecules like carbohydrates and lipids (which themselves are made through metabolic pathways involving enzymes, which are proteins). In fact, the system of DNA -> RNA -> protein is called the central dogma of biology: the code of life. A strong, resilient core enables broad variation and evolution. 

More on the core

If we were to adopt a core-first approach—a central dogma of innovation with resilience integral to its heart—we would have shifted the paradigm to embrace risk management alongside innovation, rather than leaving risk management running breathlessly behind, always trying to catch up and far too frequently leaving us cleaning up messes as poorly controlled innovations run amok or spawn dangerous second-order effects.

If we don’t sufficiently understand our technology before we unleash it, it’s often because we didn’t build it to be understood and assessed, but only to grow. There’s a reasonable chance we can enjoy the fruits of growth without such frequent incidents and implosions if we build in risk management from the start and at the heart. And, as our technology becomes increasingly complex and sophisticated, making this shift may be one of few paths that can increase our chances of evolving alongside innovation, rather than finding ourselves superseded. 

1. Meadows, Donella. “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System.” https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

2. Details about introns, exons, initiation sites, and replication are abstracted away, but if you’re curious, MITx’s Biology: The Secret of Life on edX offers a fascinating introduction