Twelve leverage points
The twelve leverage points to intervene in a system were proposed by Donella Meadows, a scientist and system analyst who studied environmental limits to economic growth.
History
The leverage points, first published in 1997, were inspired by Meadows' attendance at a North American Free Trade Agreement meeting in the early 1990s, where she realized a very large new system was being proposed but the mechanisms to manage it were ineffective. Meadows, who worked in the field of systems analysis, proposed a scale of places to intervene in a system. Awareness and manipulation of these levers is an aspect of self-organization and can lead to collective intelligence. Her observations are often cited in energy economics, green economics and human development theory.Meadows started with the observation that there are levers, or places within a complex system where a "small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything".
She claimed we need to know about these shifts, where they are, and how to use them. She said most people know where these points are instinctively, but tend to adjust them in the wrong direction. A greater understanding would help solve global problems such as unemployment, hunger, economic stagnation, pollution, resources depletion, and conservation issues.
Meadows started with a nine-point list of such places, and expanded it to a list of twelve leverage points with explanations and examples, for systems in general. She describes a system as being in a certain state, consisting of a stock and flow, with inflows and outflows. At a given time, the system is in a certain perceived state. There may also be a goal for the system to be in a certain state. The difference between the current state and the goal is the discrepancy.
Leverage points to intervene in a system
The following are in increasing order of effectiveness.12. Constants, parameters, numbers
Parameters are points of lowest leverage effects. Though they are the most clearly perceived among all leverages, they rarely change behaviors and therefore have little long-term effect.11. The size of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows
A buffer's ability to stabilize a system is important when the stock amount is much higher than the potential amount of inflows or outflows. In the lake, the water is the buffer: if there's a lot more of it than inflow/outflow, the system stays stable.Buffers can improve a system, but they are often physical entities whose size is critical and can't be changed easily.