System Archetypes: Patterns That Repeat Everywhere

Why do talented founders repeat the same mistakes? Why do antibiotics stop working? Why do social networks first unite people, then divide them? Because all these situations are manifestations of the same archetypes.

• **Limits to Growth**: Every startup, every empire, every ecosystem
• **Shifting the Burden**: Painkillers, credit cards, outsourcing
• **Tragedy of the Commons**: Fishing, pollution, traffic

What are System Archetypes?

**The paradox of success:** The more successful a company, the more it hires. The more people, the more complex communication becomes. The more complex communication, the slower the decisions. Microsoft, IBM, Nokia, Kodak - they all went through this.

**System archetype** - a recurring behavioral pattern that emerges across different systems. Just as literature has 'hero defeats the dragon,' systems have 'growth runs into a limit.'

Peter Senge in 'The Fifth Discipline' (1990) showed that most organizational problems are variations of ~10 basic patterns.

Knowing the archetypes makes it possible to see the future - because it has already happened a million times.

Limits to Growth: The Ceiling

**Limits to Growth:** A reinforcing loop drives growth → growth activates a balancing loop (constraint) → growth slows and stops.

**Examples:**

**The trap:** When growth slows, the instinctive response is pushing harder on the R-loop (more marketing). But the problem is the constraint! The right move is to eliminate the constraint.

Shifting the Burden: The Quick Fix

**Shifting the Burden:** A symptom is treated with a quick fix → the fix relieves pressure on the fundamental solution → the root cause remains → the symptom returns stronger.

**Examples:**

**The trap:** The quick fix relieves pain RIGHT NOW. That makes it attractive. But every application weakens the capacity to solve the problem fundamentally.

Tragedy of the Commons: The Shared Resource

**Tragedy of the Commons:** Each agent optimizes for themselves → the shared resource depletes → everyone loses.

**Examples:**

• **Fishing:** Everyone catches more → no fish left
• **Traffic:** Everyone drives → everyone sits in a jam
• **Office coffee:** Everyone takes more → it runs out
• **Antibiotics:** Everyone uses them → bacteria become resistant

**Solution:** Set rules for everyone (regulation), divide the resource (privatization), or create feedback for each agent (taxes, quotas).

Key Ideas

• **System archetypes** - recurring behavioral patterns in systems
• **Limits to Growth**: growth creates a constraint → work on the constraint, not the growth
• **Shifting the Burden**: a quick fix relieves pressure on the real solution
• **Tragedy of the Commons**: individual rationality depletes the shared resource

What's Next?

Archetypes show the patterns. Leverage points show where to intervene.

• Leverage Points — Where to push the system for maximum effect
• Policy Resistance — Why interventions backfire - through the Fixes that Fail archetype
• Social Systems — Tragedy of Commons in real communities and organizations

Вопросы для размышления

• Which archetype is most common in organizations - Limits to Growth or Shifting the Burden?
• Where do real projects apply quick fixes instead of solving the underlying problem?
• Are there shared resources in teams that get depleted without explicit agreements?

Связанные уроки

• st-01-feedback-loops — Archetypes are specific named patterns of R and B feedback loops
• st-04-leverage — Identifying the archetype points directly to the leverage point
• st-24-policy-resistance — Fixes that Fail archetype explains why interventions backfire
• st-11-social — Tragedy of Commons is pervasive in social and collective systems
• logic-10-fallacies-intro — Logical fallacies are recurring patterns of bad reasoning, just like archetypes
• dyn-03