Yesterday I tried to clean a drop of oil in my garden shed.

Simple task.

Except it wasn’t.

Cleaning the oil required moving tools.

Moving tools made the patio dirty.

Cleaning the patio made mud.

The mud created footprints.

The footprints required mopping.

One fix → five ripple effects.

It reminded me that in any complex system, there are no isolated actions. Economists call it externalities. Physicists call it second-order effects.

In reality it just means: when you touch one thing, you move many things.

Most organisations forget this. They optimize for the direct effect and ignore the cascade:

- Cut a cost → slow a workflow → frustrate a team → lose a client.

- Speed up decisions → overload execution → degrade quality.

- Add a KPI → distort behaviour → destroy trust.

Progress normally fails because the second, third and fourth consequences are invisible until they arrive.

The art is to try to anticipate the ripples and make sure they compound in your favour.

Or as Naval would say:

“If you want a peaceful life, choose a static one. If you want a meaningful life, accept motion.”