The Compasses — Episode 4: Capacity, Appetite, and Cycles of Collapse

This episode examines the Compasses at a systemic level, where growth, demand, and capacity interact over time. Rather than treating expansion as inherently positive, the Compasses are used to diagnose when appetites begin to exceed what a system can sustain. The episode traces a recurring pattern of overreach, strain, collapse, and restart, and explores how boundaries and outsourcing function as tools for maintaining scalability.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Systems are designed to grow, either explicitly or implicitly
• Growth increases appetite, scope, and demand
• When capacity cannot support demand, collapse follows predictable cycles
• Boundaries and outsourcing preserve scalability
• Systems rarely remain in equilibrium for long

💬 Featured Quotes

• 0:00:11–0:00:23
  “Organizations and even individual organisms in a system have a desire to grow.”
• 0:01:12–0:01:18
  “Without the appropriate amount of capacity to solve those organizational appetites, you’re going to go through these cycles.”
• 0:01:21–0:01:38
  “The cycle looks something like an overreach… some level of strain… then either a correction of some sort or a complete collapse and then a restart.”
• 0:02:27–0:02:36
  “How can I exert that influence in a way that allows us to either build capacity… or reshape that demand in a way that’s manageable?”
• 0:02:43–0:02:49
  “The boundaries between organizations start to become useful for creating that scalability that you need.”
• 0:04:35–0:04:39
  “Very rarely do they sit in sort of equilibrium for long.”
• 0:04:39–0:04:41
  “There will always be a desire to grow and change and evolve.”

Creators & Guests

• Brian Mattocks - Host

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