Increasing efficiency tends to lock up a system
After experiencing rapid growth, a complex adaptive system tends to shift into the conservation phase. This happens commensurate to the drive to increase efficiency, which tends to decrease the effectiveness of a system. This situation is characterized by:[1]
- Increases in efficiency being achieved through the removal of apparent redundancies (one-size-fits-all solutions are increasingly the order of the day);
- Subsidies being introduced are almost always to help people not to change (rather than to change);
- More “sunk costs” effects in which we put more of our effort into continuing with existing investments rather than exploring new ones (the Concorde effect);
- Increased command and control (less and less flexibility);
- A preoccupation with process (more and more rules, more time and effort devoted to sticking to procedures);
- Novelty being suppressed, with less support for experimentation; and
- Rising transaction costs in getting things done.
See also:
These factors are listed in Resilience Thinking – Walker and Salt (2012), ch. 4, § “Dangers of the Late K Phase.” ↩︎