There are a lot of problems with using Coevolution as our central method of changing a system:
- While we may have energy, flexibility, and rapidness of response in the early phases of a coevolutionary competition, the other system typically has far more money and an inherently deep inertia. In the long run, we are likely to run out of juice before the other side does. Thus, we settle for what we can get, and go on to another coevolutionary change strategy or phase in the game.
- Since our targets for change typically want certainty in their future, they will settle with us in ways that reduce uncertainty-typically a clearer (more rigid) definition of some part of the game's defining characteristics. When we settle for less than what we would like, and they settle for something that is more predictable, the system we are trying to change becomes more and more rigid. Look at how special education law has solidified over the decades in ways that have not met the possibilities we all envisioned "back in the day".
- Once a target system is rigid, "our" side becomes a fractured set of seperate communities who will be unwilling to give up progress in their interests in order to achieve progress in some other set of interests. This fracturing is most obvious when the target system attempts to implement cutbacks. We can only stand against all cuts, even though some cuts will eventually be made, because we would have no "push" otherwise.
- We do not have the resources to directly push for the kind of ultimate full system change we want. Even if we push hard in one part of our change agenda, we are likely to run out of resources before the other system does. So we settle in some way or another in order to get a decent outcome now, and preserve our ability to continue the fight, operating on the assumption that we have created a new plateau for the struggle.
- As can be seen over the last half-century, the political basis of change shifts. We now live in a time when much of our success (and our methods of change) will be undercut by reduced funding over the long term. Any change in overall resources for the two parties to the game changes the basic dynamic of coevolution.
While coevolutionary change strategies have allowed up to create change in the legal infrastructure of our rights and possibilities, I believe that the effectiveness of those strategies is fading. We are getting less and less for more and more effort. We need to think about systems change using a new framework.
Next: What is Disruptive Innovation as a Change Strategy?