Quick Fixes Can Poison the System: Your Inventions in a Complex System are Crucial

I could solve my rat problem in a weekend.

Box of rat poison, hungry rats and by Monday most of the rats would be gone.

Except poison doesn’t stay where you put it in the system.

• The rats eat the poison.
• The cats eat the poisoned rats.
• My dogs eat the poisoned rats.
• The hawks and owls eat the poisoned rats.

I’d be trading “rats are eating my feed” for “dead cats, poisoned dogs, and worse rodent problems.”

How we got here

Callie is my newest livestock guardian dog. She is a Maremma and like most livestock guardian dog breeds was bred for thousands of years to think independently and protect her herd.

Callie has whined at the barn cats since I got her. When she was a small pup the cats weren’t worried too much. Even though she can’t reach them, now that she is full sized she scares them.

The cats used to patrol the entire barn. Now they won’t go near the feed storage area.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Rats don’t.

This spring I occasionally noticed a rat. Now that they’ve had time to multiply it’s much worse.

The obvious solutions that don’t work

Move Callie. I have another team of working dogs that guard my other herd. I could try moving Callie there but she is very bonded to BooBoo one of her current team.

Train Callie to accept cats? Working on it. All of my other dogs have learned to accept the cats.

Get rid of Callie? She is the fifth livestock guardian dog I’ve raised. There is always an issue that seems unsolvable and then almost magically it seems like the dog grows up.

Just use the poison? Solves the immediate problem. Poisons everything connected to it.

What I’m actually doing

None of the obvious solutions work without breaking something else. This is the nature of systems work: there is no perfect solution. There’s only the least-bad combination of imperfect interventions.

Wait for weather. It’s October. When rain starts, cats want shelter. They’ll come inside near Callie. This is just a theory, they could still avoid her area of the barn.

Supplement with traps. While I wait, I have a real problem costing real money. I don’t love having to deal with traps, but it’s an option.

Continue gradual training. I pick-up Melvin our big orange barn cat and pet him and say to Callie “this is Melvin he is a cool dude.” This has worked with all the other dogs, it just takes time.

Move the feed area. With some investment I could make it even harder for the rats to access the feed.

Notice what I’m NOT doing: one big intervention, anything irreversible, forcing the system to change on my timeline.

Notice what I AM doing: multiple small interventions, using external forces, accepting time as a variable, building in reversibility.

The framework

Here’s what I’ve learned about interventions in complex systems:

Your system connections that are unmapped and undiscovered. I designed for dog/goat and cat/rat linkages. I didn’t see how adding Callie would affect the cat/rat interface through the dog/cat interactions. When you intervene, you’re not changing one thing. You’re changing every linkage that thing touches. The change cascades.

Some interventions are reversible, some aren’t. I can set a trap. If it doesn’t work, I remove it. I cannot un-poison a dead cat. Reversibility is a feature. When you’re intervening in a system you don’t fully understand you need to consider what you can undo.

Time is a variable, not an enemy. I have interventions on different timescales: traps (days), weather (weeks), dog maturity (years). I’m not waiting for one thing. I’m running multiple interventions in parallel. Impatience makes you reach for poison.

Constraints protect you. “No poison” forces me to think harder. “We can’t skip security review” means you build in time for it. The best constraints prevent you from breaking something irreversible.

External forces are opportunities. I can’t make cats go near Callie. But rain will. Look for forces already moving through your system: market pressure, regulatory deadlines, team pain points. Work with them instead of manufacturing urgency.

Layer interventions, don’t bet on one. If my entire plan was “wait for maturity,” I’m gambling. If it’s “trap rats,” I’m managing symptoms forever. But I’m doing three things plus monitoring. Layered interventions give you options. Single big interventions give you binary outcomes.

Translation to tech

What are the poison equivalents in your work? Completely rebuild the system and migrate. So often teams want to start over on the system. It always takes longer, is harder and has unforeseen consequences.

Skip security review to hit the launch. Solves deadline pressure. Poisons trust with security team, creates actual vulnerabilities that could surface anytime.

Cut “overhead” teams to reduce costs. Solves budget pressure. Likely burns out the whole team over time.

Game metrics to show progress. Solves dashboard problems. Poisons trust in data, team morale, ability to see real problems. Cascades through decisions based on bad data.

Each works. Each poisons something.

Your intervention decision tree

Step 1: Map the current system. What’s actually happening? What are the interfaces? Where would a change cascade?

Step 2: Identify the “poison” solutions. What would solve this fast? What would that break? Cross these off.

Step 3: Look for external forces. What’s already creating pressure? What’s the natural timing? What can you work with?

Step 4: Design layered interventions. What addresses the immediate problem? What addresses the root cause? What works on different timescales?

Step 5: Bias toward reversibility. What can you try that you can undo? Start there.

Step 6: Monitor and adjust. What tells you it’s working? What tells you it’s creating new problems?

Step 7: Accept “good enough.” What tradeoffs are you making? Can you live with them? If yes, stop optimizing.

Closing

It’s raining now. The cats are coming back to the barn. Not all the way to Callie yet, but closer. Callie still whines sometimes, but less. The traps caught three rats last week. Feed loss is down.

I don’t know if this will fully work. What I know is I didn’t poison anything. The cats are alive. The dogs are healthy. The owls still hunt. The system is intact.

I still have a rat problem. It’s smaller than it was. That’s not the dramatic success story you might want. It’s the real one.

In systems work, you don’t always eliminate problems. Sometimes you understand them, manage them, make tradeoffs you can live with, and avoid creating worse problems you can’t predict.

The next time someone offers an obvious solution to your complex problem, ask: what’s the poison in this? What might this break that I’m not tracking?

Then design for patience, reversibility, and multiple paths to success.

Then watch what actually happens.

How are you mapping your systems so you don't poison them?

-Kate
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​Note: This builds on a previous blog post On Farming, Systems Thinking and Being an Agricultural Architect

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