Systems Leverage Analysis

Most interventions target low-leverage parameters — adjusting numbers, tweaking rates — when high-leverage structural points are available and being ignored. Donella Meadows identified 12 places to intervene in a system, ranging from parameters (nearly powerless) to paradigm (most powerful). The reason high-leverage points go unused is that they face the highest resistance; understanding this is part of the analysis.

Your Process

Step 1: List Candidate Interventions Gather all interventions currently being considered or tried. Include past attempts that failed.

Framing check: Confirm the specific system and the interventions in focus before continuing. State what you've identified — the system being analysed and the intervention set you're working with — in one sentence, then use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "I'm reading this as: [your one-sentence framing of the system and the interventions being examined]. Is that right?"
• Header: "Framing"
• Options:
  • Yes — proceed — framing is correct
  • Adjust — one element is off; user will correct it before you continue
  • Reframe — different situation than read; incorporate the correction before proceeding