Systems Work, Until They Don't
On why sometimes, you have to do things that don't scale
Hey everyone! 👋🏻
Hope you all have been doing well since we last spoke, and welcome back to another edition of The Gunn Show.
It’s been a busy past week+ as we are trying to get settled into our routine as parents of a (now) 11 day old, thus the mid-week send here. So in the spirit of asking for forgiveness, here is a picture of little-man in all his cuteness as my penance:
With Spring Training fast approaching and with it the 2025 MLB season, I’ve been spending some time recently reflecting on all of the systems we’ve been working to build over the past couple months. In somewhat appropriate timing, I came across one of my favorite pieces written by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham that got me thinking deeply about where systems work and where they don’t, specifically as it relates to one of Graham’s best ideas: doing things that don’t scale.
So today I thought I’d share my perspective on how I think about systems - what they are, what good ones look like, and where even the best ones fall short. Today’s roadmap:
Thinking in Systems - A Definition
Systems - An Equation of Idea Quality and Idea Scale
Where Systems Fall Short - Things that Don’t Scale
Personal Toolbox of Tactics
Let’s get to it.
- CG
Thinking in Systems
A quick look through my library will tell you that I’m attracted to the idea of principled - and thus systematic - thinking.
On the shelves in my office, you’ll find a number of books relating to the concept - ranging from ones with pointed, “system-centric” titles like “Thinking in Systems”, “Good Strategy Bad Strategy”, and “On Grand Strategy” (a personal favorite) to others with more adjacent monikers like “Principles” and “Willpower Doesn’t Work”. In fact, there are so many books in my library that touch on how to think about and build systems that you’d be excused for thinking the shelves are an ode to the concept itself.
From a broad perspective, “thinking in systems” is about understanding the interconnectedness and interdependencies within a given context. Whether in relation to sports teams, businesses, or society writ large, what thinking from a systematic perspective does is to create a mindset shift: rather than keying in on individual components, it encourages us to instead focus on the relationships, feedback loops, and flows of information between those components.
By centering on how things connect together on top of the pieces in isolation, we become more equipped to understand how actions we take not only influence specific areas of a system but also the system as a whole. And when we zoom out to see the forest created by the trees, a new host of solutions opens up - ones that help us shift from a reactive mode, in which we simply fix problems as they emerge, to a proactive one, in which we are building resilient and adaptable systems meant to embrace and adapt to the natural complexity they are sure to face.
Thinking in systems has powerful implications because life itself is merely one big system - and so too are all of the components that make it whole. Countries are systems of states, businesses systems of people and process, and on and on. To borrow and adapt an old turn of phrase, it’s systems all the way down.
And when we think through this lens, we find a solution to one of the world’s greatest questions: when things get bigger, how do we deal with the resulting challenges of scale?
Systems - A Balancing Act Between Idea Quality and Idea Scale
Systems by nature rely on information - the assumptions you make, the principles that underly them - and how that information ultimately comes together. As such, when it comes to implementing systems in my own life I ultimately see them as a balancing act between two competing variables relating to ideas: quality and scale.
Let’s define each as the following:
Idea Quality - How ‘right’ or aligned with reality your ideas are. If there is a truth to be found about an idea, are your ideas about that truth close to the mark or far from it?
Idea Scale - The processes you put in place in order to enact your ideas across a system. Good scale means having a neatly arranged combination of processes that allow your ideas to spread across your system.
When juxtaposed against each other, we can create the following visual that outlines the possible combinations:
Two of these quadrants (I = Good Ideas with Good Scale; III = Poor Ideas with Poor Scale) are self-explanatory. When you have good ideas properly scaled, good things tend to happen. And similar in the opposite case - bad ideas combined with bad scale is not likely to be a recipe for success, whether you are starting a business or running a sports team.
But what about the non-obvious cases, where there is a mismatch between quality of ideas and scale? As always, these gray areas are where things are most interesting.
First, on Quadrant II - good ideas but poor scale. I think of this as the “opportunity zone”, as in these cases you already have the hardest part in place - the quality of the idea. You may be leaving some execution on the table, but your compass is at least pointing in the right direction. All that is missing is the right processes to enact those ideas at scale - with a few small tweaks to get those right, you are well on your way to creating a goldilocks system. All things considered, this isn’t a bad place to start out.
But Quadrant IV - bad ideas with good scale - is a different story, the part of the graph I think of as the “danger zone”. Here you have good processes in place to systematize your ideas and let them take flight, but the ideas themselves are far off base from truth. Your actions may be efficient, but your direction is off. The result of a highly ‘optimized’ system construction is that you go very far but towards the wrong destination. Bad ideas with good processes create major problems, so much so that you’d best suited to go back to the drawing board and get the ideas right from the start.
From these two cases, we see that when it comes to systems an order of operations exists: get the ideas right first, and then figure out how to scale them with processes second.
A system is only as good as the underlying assumptions it makes, meaning that good ideas are a requisite for good systems. Get them right and everything else is more likely to fall into place. Skip steps at your peril - put the cart before the horse and you won’t find yourself with a recipe for success’ you’ll have one for disaster instead.
But regardless when it comes to systems, the goal is clear: we want to have our cake and eat it too - we want good ideas, properly scaled. Accurate principles that are then reinforced over and over again with quality processes at every layer of the stack. Optimize both variables in the right direction and good outcomes will be increasingly likely.
But unfortunately while optimized systems certainly do make good outcomes likely, they do not make them inevitable as a result of a simple truth: perfect systems are a myth because there are some things that do not scale.
And when this is the case, you need a different approach to fill in the cracks.
Where Systems Fall Short - Things That Don’t Scale
Speaking from experience, one of the enticing things about building systems is that they are “outsourcing machines” - rather than needing to micro-manage every single action, you can instead design a system that handles the bulk of them for you. With the right processes in place, things tend to get taken care of naturally without you having to be there. It follows that the ROI of systems is more than just outcomes - it’s the energy you have with the right ones in place to do other things.
But there is a bit of an illusion at play here because while systems are great, even the best one will have holes that need to be patched. You can’t design a system for every possible contingency or every executable action, meaning that there will inevitably be times where you have to do things yourself.
Venture capitalist and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham calls this concept doing things that don’t scale.
In his piece of the same name, Graham introduced the phrase as a response to a common misperception he has seen in startup founders: too often, founders think startups succeed solely as a function of their ideas and the processes that systematize it. As he writes:
“A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don't. You build something, make it available, and if you've made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don't, in which case the market must not exist.”
But according to Graham, this perspective isn’t exactly accurate. In his eyes, most startups don’t succeed simply because they had a better idea, or a better system. Instead, the best ones take off because the founders make them take off. Founders build the system, sure, but in Graham’s eyes that’s not enough - in the same way that a fire needs a spark to light its kindling and logs, so too do startups rely on a heavy amount of pushing to get them going.
Frequently, that initial spark is a function of effort. Or as Graham says, doing thing that don’t scale - taking a hands on, personal approach to address the gaps that systems cannot handle alone. Actions like working hard to build a network, being relentless in asking users for feedback on your product, or stepping in to problem solve yourself when processes simply aren’t cutting it.
These types of actions stand in contrast to things that do scale - like software, automation, or mass production - in that they cannot be replicated without losing what makes them special in the first place. The human touch that makes your systems, well, a little more human.
Some things can’t and shouldn’t be automated - and that is unequivocally a good thing. Because when it comes to doing things that don’t scale, it is the relative scarcity of those actions that gives them their power.
People - whether colleagues, employees, or customers - intuitively know that time is necessarily limited, meaning that they know it isn’t possible (or advisable) to spend all day focusing on things that don’t scale. You can’t spend all day crafting hand-written thank you cards or automate building a network with low-effort spam (seriously, check the cesspool of your Linked In inbox if you think you can).
The result is a greater appreciation when you actually do, especially when they find themselves at the center of that action. It is the recognition that you don’t have time to do that action for everyone that because it doesn’t scale that ultimately carries weight. Because you chose to do it for them anyways.
People are biologically hard-wired to appreciate things that require effort; to appreciate doing things that don’t scale. Outsourcing everything to a system spits in the face of this truth - if you only focus on the things that do scale, you are bound to miss the value of the things that don’t. Whether in business or in life.
And, as I’ve learned, the same is true of sports.
Personal Toolbox of Things That Don’t Scale
Most of my experiences in the world of sports have been heavily tied to the concept of building systems. With the scale at which the player development space operates in Major League Baseball, having good systems and process in place is a necessity.
But as I’ve shared above, I’ve learned over time that even when building what you think is an optimized system there will be holes to patch. Perfect systems are a myth, and a personalized touch will always be required.
And so to close, I thought I would share a small running list I’ve been building of things I’ve found to carry immense value that don’t scale. These are a few some of my favorite things I try to keep in my toolbox for the right moment in the season, whether that be for our players or our coaches. And it is my belief that many of these apply as equally to broader aspects of life as they do to sports themselves:
Coffee - Many of the deepest and most fulfilling conversations I have experienced have come from an hour long sit down at a coffee-shop. A $5 cup of Joe and the connection it leads to is a remarkably effective thing that doesn’t scale (a sit-down for a cold evening beverage works wonders here as well).
Hand-Written Thank You Cards - The digital age hasn’t eroded the power of the written word; it has amplified it instead. When a text is so easy to send that everyone can do it, putting pen to paper in order to give someone their roses is a powerful way to stand out above the rest.
“I See You” Texts - The season moves fast and there our countless things to keep track of across a system of hundreds of players and coaches. In an environment like this, it is easy for those in the midst of it to feel like they are just lost in the shuffle, a small cog in the machine. Simple texts when a small but important accomplishment is made goes a long way in making someone feel like they play a big part in the broader whole.
1 on 1 Coaching/Film Sessions - If you’ve ever been in a position where you’ve worked with players, you’ll know that the most-powerful breakthroughs are often on the other side of a long, gritty, raw, and highly personalized training session. So much so that it’s one of the things that I hear the most from coaches - “I wish I had more time for those 1 on 1 connection opportunities”.
Life Follow-Ups - Every time we meet someone, we share a lot about ourselves to get to know each other - where we are from, what our hobbies are, pets, kids, spouses, and on and on. But more frequently than not these types of little details go in one ear and out the other. Dale Carnegie once said that “a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest sound in any language”. That idea extends to more than just names - remembering the small details about someone’s life and asking targeted follow ups at the right time goes a long way in making them feel valued. As we say in Texas, get to know the person - not just the performer.
Hopefully this list serves as a starting point to get you thinking about the small yet powerful actions you can take that can’t be automated away.
Systems are great, to be sure - so try your best to create things that scale. But let this be a call not to neglect the things that don’t along the way.
