In 1851, the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote in his essay collection Parerga und Paralipomena:

If you’ve worked in government or public service for a while, you’ll recognise the feeling: a lot doesn’t change.

Or when it does, it creeps slowly that at first glance you barely notice.

Policies roll out, programs expand, budgets shift, yet the system often looks stubbornly the same.

The changes are small.

And that’s not always a bad thing.

Think about the toughest riddle you’ve ever tried to crack.

Once the answer revealed itself, wasn’t it shockingly simple? You almost wondered how you didn’t see it earlier.

Similarly, a programmer trying to debug a piece of code might wrestle for hours, only to realise that the issue was a wrong variable name, a misplaced bracket, or an overlooked assumption in logic.

That’s the paradox.

The hardest problems often have disarmingly simple answers.

The challenge is not in their complexity, but in knowing which small move will shift the entire system.

This is what systems thinkers call leverage points.

Those places in a complex system where a tiny nudge can produce outsized results.

Identifying which of the many possible small approaches will have a disproportionate impact on your thinking that then leads to big shifts in how you see the problem.

In development, that might be reframing the metrics of success, consolidating departments, or shifting how data is shared across ministries.

The problem is: in hindsight, it all looks obvious.

In foresight, it’s a maze.

So the real hack isn’t about finding any small change.

It’s about spotting the right one by iteration.

A small exercise for you

Try this five-step test to surface possible leverage points in your own institution:

1. Name the toughest problem. Write it down in one clear sentence. Not two, not three. One.
2. Imagine it solved. Describe in two or three bullet points what would be noticeably different if this problem disappeared.
3. Trace the bottleneck. Ask: what’s the one rule, process, or assumption that keeps this problem alive?
4. Identify a small tweak. What is the smallest possible change you could make to that bottleneck tomorrow?
5. Test it. Pilot the tweak on a small scale. If it works, you’ve found a leverage point. If it doesn’t, shift and try the next tweak.

This isn’t about grand overhauls. It’s about sharpening your eye for the small hinges that swing big doors.

Why this matters for development

National systems, from agriculture to education, infrastructure to finance don’t shift because of sweeping declarations alone.

They shift because someone identified a small hinge that could move a big door.

That’s where development practitioners, policy analysts, and reformers should focus energy.

Not on solving everything, but on asking:

What small procedural change could remove a bottleneck?

What tweak in media narratives could redirect entire flows of behavior?

What overlooked rule, assumption, or metric is quietly shaping everything else?

Remember, small changes when leveraged correctly, are not marginal.

They are transformational.

Every week, this newsletter Development Hacks delivers strategic thinking + doing tools for public leaders, economic policymakers, and system builders working to shape emerging economies from the inside out. If this article challenged your perspective, forward it to someone making decisions at scale.