The Playground Doesn’t Scale, But the Game Does
- Julia Coburn
- 16 hours ago
- 1 min read
We spend a lot of time trying to scale change.
If something works, we assume the next step is to scale it—standardize it, replicate it, roll it out more broadly. But what if change in complex human systems doesn’t always move the way we think?
As spring arrives, my family has been spending more time at the park. I’ve been watching kids play a game called grounders—a game I never played growing up—and it got me thinking about how things spread.
One child introduces it.
Others try it.
If it’s fun, it sticks.
Over time, it moves from group to group, playground to playground. Not because someone is managing it, or trying to scale it. And yet, it spreads.
Watching this, I started to wonder: What if change in our organizations and systems works more like this than we think? And if so—what does that mean for what we pay attention to, design for, and perhaps let go of when we’re trying to create positive change?
Maybe change doesn’t spread through replication, but through patterns that move between people.
