Leverage Maps #17: Why Systems Thinking Matters

Most people don't quit because of one bad day. They quit because of a pattern that they couldn't quite name.

It's often the endless firefighting, the project that kept stalling, or the career that somehow felt like it was running in place despite all the effort.

I used to think that the solution was just to work harder and push through no matter what. But working harder doesn't always mean better. Sometimes it just means burning more fuel inside a system you don't fully understand.

Here's the pattern most of us fall into: we respond to what's right in front of us.

→ The backlog grows, so we stay late to close tickets → A teammate struggles, so we quietly absorb their work → Leadership is vague, so we work harder to prove we're committed

At first, it feels noble. You're helping. But if you zoom out, you see these fixes rarely change the underlying pattern. You've treated the symptom, not the system. You're being reactive and not proactive.

That's what systems thinking interrupts. It gives you the lens to ask: Why is this happening? What loops are reinforcing it? Where is the leverage point?

My upcoming book Leverage Maps is for knowledge workers who keep running into invisible walls. It's for anyone in a messy system who wants to stop burning out and start designing. And they're all messy, because that's life.

The truth is, most people don't need more effort. They need better maps.

Once you can see the patterns, you can stop swimming upstream and start designing with the current.

Stay tuned for more.