When you are growing a business, it can feel like decisions need to be made fast, but some might come with costs further down the road, as Mark explains.
Newton’s Third Law of Motion tells us that:
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Newton is, of course, describing physics and forces between objects, but it becomes a powerful metaphor in leadership when we consider strategy, culture, incentives, or employee behaviour.
When you apply force to a system, the system pushes back.
The challenge for business leaders is that this reaction can be unpredictable. In his 1936 paper, “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” sociologist Robert K. Merton popularised the law of unintended consequences.
His point was simple but uncomfortable: even when leaders act consciously and with good intent, humans often respond in ways we didn’t predict, producing outcomes we didn’t plan for.
Newton offers us the concept of a ‘reaction’, and Merton’s work explains why those human reactions are rarely linear or predictable.
Unless it is totally stagnant, a business, whether it is large or small, is a system made up of actions and reactions, a complex, organic tension of people, incentives, customers, partners, processes, culture, cash flow, and constraints, etc.
And, so as business leaders, we see this play out for real:
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Change incentives → behaviour shifts (often in unintended ways).
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Impose controls → teams resist, work around them, or slow down.
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Push growth hard → costs rise, margins fall, and quality can dip.
All of these are the inevitable characteristics of growth, and there is no opportunity to stand still.
The lesson for leaders of growing companies is to consider the possible second and third order effects by stress testing decisions not just for the intended outcome, but for the behaviours and side effects they may accidentally cause.
Because the biggest risks in scaling your business rarely come from the strategies you debate the hardest…
They come from the consequences you didn’t model.
This is where strong boards, Independent NEDs, and advisors who have seen this before can offer guidance and add real value.
If you’re experiencing unexpected consequences. And let’s be honest. who hasn’t. Why not get in touch to arrange a confidential conversation?
