The Friction of Change - Two Operating Systems

Why progress resists us at every stage, and what it really takes to make improvement last

Maypopgrove.com is for people who see what is broken, imagine what could be better, and feel compelled to act. Builders, reformers, innovators, organizers, leaders, teachers, founders, investors, policymakers, and quiet custodians—anyone trying to turn “we should” into “we did” in a world that is, at once, astonishingly opportunity-rich and stubbornly resistant to lasting improvement.

We live in a time of immense capability. Tools multiply. Knowledge spreads. Networks form at the speed of thought. Solutions are proposed in every domain—health, education, infrastructure, climate, governance, culture. And yet anyone who has tried to implement real change knows the uncomfortable truth: progress is not merely a matter of having the right idea.

The world does not automatically keep what we build. Good intentions do not protect systems from drift. Success does not guarantee durability.

And the resistance you encounter is not confined to politics, incentives, or institutional inertia. It shows up earlier—and it never really goes away.

It appears at every stage of change, because change leaders are always working against a deeper, quieter force: the friction between humanity’s two operating systems.

Two operating systems, one species

Human beings run on two interacting systems.

The first is ancient. It was shaped by evolution—by survival, reproduction, threat, scarcity, and competition. This operating system is fast, emotional, tribal, status-aware, short-horizon, and reactive. It favors what works now, for us.

The second is aspirational. It emerged later, made possible by human cognition, language, empathy, and foresight. This operating system enables ethics, justice, restraint, guardianship, and long-horizon responsibility. It allows us to imagine futures that don’t yet exist and act on principles rather than impulses.

Neither system is optional. Neither system is imaginary. But they do not naturally align.

Change leadership lives in the tension between them.

And that tension doesn’t appear once—it appears repeatedly, at every phase of progress.

Stage 1: Initiation — Why change feels obvious to you and threatening to others

Every serious change effort begins with perception: someone sees a problem that others have normalized. Waste. Injustice. Fragility. Drift. Inefficiency. Harm.

But the moment you name the problem, the first operating system reacts.

Instinct does not ask, “Is this broken?”Instinct asks, “Is this a threat?”

Threat to identity. Threat to status. Threat to the tribe. Threat to routine. Threat to the story people tell themselves about competence or goodness.

So early resistance often looks like:

• minimization (“it’s not that bad”)

• deflection (“there are bigger problems”)

• personalization (“why are you attacking us?”)

• fatigue (“do we really need another initiative?”)

  
  

Change leaders often misread this as ignorance or bad faith. More often, it is the ancient operating system doing its job: preserving stability, avoiding uncertainty, protecting social position.

Initiation requires aspiration to overcome fear before anything is built.

This is why framing, trust, and moral clarity matter so early. You are not just introducing an idea—you are asking people to temporarily suspend their reflex.

Stage 2: Creation — When ideals collide with constraints

Once change moves from idea to design, a different friction appears.

Aspirational thinking imagines clean solutions:

• fair systems

• rational incentives

• aligned interests

• elegant structures

Reality introduces constraints:

• legacy systems

• competing incentives

• limited attention

• uneven capability

• political and economic pressure

At this stage, the first operating system reasserts itself in subtler ways:

• cutting corners “just this once.”

• optimizing for speed over integrity

• privileging familiar methods over better ones

• protecting internal comfort at the expense of external impact

Creation fails not only when ideas are bad, but when aspiration quietly gives way to expedience.

The best builders experience this as a constant negotiation: How much compromise preserves momentum—and how much erodes the very purpose of the change?

This is where many efforts quietly lose their soul without anyone explicitly deciding to abandon it.

Stage 3: Implementation — Where ancient instincts show up in modern systems

Implementation is where change most often breaks—not because the idea was wrong, but because the human system executing it defaults under pressure.

As complexity increases:

• accountability diffuses

• incentives misalign

• shortcuts normalize

• ownership blurs

• attention shifts to performance over purpose

Under stress, the first operating system takes the wheel:

• tribal silos harden

• blame replaces learning

• status defense outruns truth

• speed displaces reflection

  
  

This is the stage where change leaders often feel betrayed by their own organization—not because people are malicious, but because systems amplify default behavior.

Implementation requires more than process. It requires guardianship—active holding of standards when the environment rewards letting go.

Without guardianship, even well-designed change decays into ritual.

Stage 4: Enhancement — Why success is not the end of resistance

If change survives implementation and begins to work, leaders often expect relief.

Instead, they encounter a new friction.

Success creates comfort. Comfort invites drift.

At this stage, resistance takes a different form:

• “We’ve already solved this.”

• “Do we really need to revisit it?”

• “Let’s not overcorrect.”

• “This is good enough.”

The ancient operating system prefers stasis once danger recedes. Maintenance feels unnecessary. Enhancement feels like risk.

But aspiration demands something harder: renewal.

Enhancement requires revisiting assumptions, correcting second-order effects, strengthening what worked and replacing what didn’t—often before failure is visible.

This is where many gains are quietly lost. Not through collapse, but through neglect.

The storage problem: why progress doesn’t carry itself forward

Here is the truth that binds all four stages:

Aspirational behavior is not stored biologically. It must be stored culturally.

Evolution preserves what works through genetics. Civilization preserves what works through teaching, practice, and reinforcement.

That means:

• every new leader must relearn the discipline

• every new generation must be taught the reasons

• every system must encode values into structure, not memory

Progress that is not transmitted decays. Values that are not practiced weaken .Standards that are not defended erode.

This is why change leadership is never “done.”

What this means for builders

If you are building change, the friction you feel is not failure. It is confirmation that you are working at the boundary between instinct and aspiration.

You are not just implementing solutions. You are countering defaults.

You are building conditions in which the aspirational operating system can run:

• structures that reward long-horizon thinking

• incentives that align behavior with values

• norms that make restraint normal

• feedback loops that surface drift early

• education that turns ideals into skills

And above all, you are engaged in transmission.

Teaching as the final responsibility

If civilization is a maintained condition, then teaching is not a side activity—it is the core mechanism.

Not teaching slogans, but teaching capacities:

• how to think systemically

• how to hold complexity without panic

• how to resist tribal simplification

• how to maintain what others built

• how to recognize drift before collapse

• how to choose aspiration when instinct is louder

If we want progress to last, we must raise people who understand that improvement is not self-sustaining—and who are prepared to do the quiet work of holding it.

The future does not automatically inherit our best ideas.It inherits what we deliberately transmit.

That is not idealism. That is stewardship.

And for those trying to turn “we should” into “we did”, it is the work—at every stage, every time.