Systemic Déjà Vu and Why Businesses Keep Innovating the Same Old Problems
- Brainz Magazine
- 11 hours ago
- 6 min read
Ana is a researcher, consultant, and systems thinker exploring the intersection of work, neuroscience, and human behaviour. Leading 99-Day Rewire, she investigates how autonomy and structure shape performance, resilience, and fulfilment in work and life.
Interacting with systems often feels like engaging in an endless game where rules constantly change, yet everything stays remarkably the same. Many small businesses and entrepreneurs enter the market fuelled by passion and the desire to create something genuinely different.
However, as growth sets in, they frequently find themselves drawn inexorably into conventional systems that they initially sought to escape.
In my current experiment, the 99-Day Rewire, I've been observing and actively engaging with how small businesses interact with larger systems. This has illuminated a troubling trend: as businesses scale, they lose their initial flexibility and creativity, transforming into smaller versions of the corporate entities they initially resisted.
The climb: From passion to protocol
Small businesses typically begin by addressing local needs or niche markets, thriving on agility, personal connection, and innovation. Yet, for growth, many eventually enter corporate procurement pipelines, becoming suppliers to larger entities. In doing so, they're compelled to adopt rigid corporate protocols such as stringent supplier approvals, inflexible operational policies, and relentless compliance standards (Mintzberg, 1983).
Take my own experience from 2023, when I managed a boutique consultancy and simultaneously developed a creative app. I aimed to balance innovative offerings with the needs of larger corporate clients in the UAE and UK. However, rather than genuine innovation, I found myself replicating familiar, restrictive frameworks. Meetings multiplied, timelines grew increasingly rigid, and innovation took a backseat to compliance and conformity.
The irony was clear: to succeed within these larger ecosystems, I was unwittingly reconstructing the same broken structures I had sought to avoid. The result? Exhaustion and diminished creativity are driven by the constant hustle to remain relevant within a system designed for conformity rather than creativity.
The startup mirage: Hustle masquerading as agility
Today’s startup culture frequently promises agility, flexibility, and innovation. Yet beneath this veneer often lies an intense culture of relentless hustle. In exploring boutique firms and family-run enterprises during my current 99-day journey, I’ve recognised unsettling similarities to larger, more toxic work environments. Passion-driven businesses often unknowingly reproduce harmful patterns of overworking and burnout because of systemic pressures and unspoken expectations (Hock, 2005).
Henry Mintzberg’s seminal work, Structure in Fives (1983), highlights how startups often inadvertently adopt bureaucratic models, thus sacrificing the dynamism and flexibility that initially drove their success. Similarly, Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, proposed an alternative, a chaordic structure blending chaos and order, promoting innovation and flexibility (Hock, 2005). Yet, even this promising concept often struggles to break through entrenched organisational paradigms.
Awareness isn't change: A persistent cycle
One might assume awareness of these systemic issues would naturally lead to change. However, historical insights reveal otherwise. Shoshana Zuboff (1988) famously predicted how digitalisation would shift workplaces towards surveillance and performative productivity.
Decades later, her predictions have become a reality as employees experience "Zoom fatigue," endless Slack notifications, and a persistent presence-based performance culture that prioritises visibility over genuine productivity.
Moreover, David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs (2018) highlights how many modern roles particularly in white-collar sectors are primarily performative. Employees engage in tasks designed solely to validate their job’s existence rather than provide genuine value, leading to widespread emotional and psychological burnout. According to Microsoft's Work Trend Index (2023), nearly 64% of workers report insufficient time to complete actual job responsibilities due to overwhelming performative tasks like meetings and unnecessary communications. These tasks are not merely unproductive, they actively erode employees' mental health and creativity.
Digital platforms: The modern factory floor
The rise of the gig economy and digital platforms has not solved the systemic stagnation; rather, it has merely repositioned the problem. Platform-driven economies often demand continuous availability and relentless productivity. Algorithms reward workers based on their constant engagement and penalise rest or downtime, perpetuating cycles of overwork and burnout (Kossek et al., 2016).
The promise of flexibility and freedom offered by digital platforms masks a grim reality: workers remain perpetually connected and hypercompetitive. This leads to reduced psychological well-being, as people feel obligated to work incessantly to maintain visibility, driven by platform metrics that measure engagement, not genuine output.
The cabinet metaphor: Fear of structural change
Imagine assembling an IKEA cabinet. Midway through, you realise a crucial mistake a misaligned panel or a misplaced screw. Instead of dismantling and correcting the mistake, you continue assembling, hoping it will suffice. The result is an unstable, poorly constructed cabinet. This is precisely our approach to work systems. Rather than addressing foundational flaws, we apply superficial solutions well-being seminars, flexible working hours, and surface-level employee perks, to a fundamentally flawed structure.
Real transformation necessitates dismantling the existing framework entirely and rebuilding it based on neuroscience and human-centric design principles. Research shows our brains operate optimally when cycles of focused productivity alternate with periods of genuine rest and reflection (Margulies et al., 2016). Overworking, continuous productivity mode, and relentless task orientation trigger the Task Positive Network (TPN) excessively, suppressing the Default Mode Network (DMN) responsible for creativity, innovation, and emotional intelligence (Menon, 2011). Without downtime, individuals and organisations experience creativity deficits, decision fatigue, and emotional exhaustion.
Breaking free: The courage to start over
Creating meaningful change requires confronting the discomfort of dismantling old paradigms. Incremental adjustments to new terminologies like “agile,” “flex,” or “hybrid” are insufficient. These terms often represent mere rebranding exercises, failing to tackle the underlying systemic dysfunctions.
Genuine systemic change requires designing systems that accommodate natural human energy cycles, creativity, and emotional well-being. It means shifting from presence-based performance metrics to outcome-based evaluations, prioritising human-centric organisational structures, and allowing authentic downtime for reflection and innovation.
Action steps towards real change
To foster true innovation, businesses and individuals can begin by:
Conducting thorough organisational gap analyses to identify and rectify inefficiencies.
Adopting chaordic structures that balance decentralisation with structured governance.
Prioritising neuroalignment by scheduling regular breaks aligned with natural brain rhythms.
Transitioning towards output-based evaluation systems rather than mere presence-based measurements.
Encouraging transparent dialogue around structural flaws rather than perpetuating surface-level solutions.
Final thoughts: From replication to authentic innovation
Innovation is not merely about introducing new technologies or methodologies. True innovation challenges fundamental assumptions and redesigns systems from their very foundations. It demands courage, structural bravery, and collective action.
Through my 99-Day Rewire experiment, I am committed to identifying and sharing insights on how we can meaningfully break the cycle of systemic stagnation. The experiment highlights that genuine progress emerges not from mimicking existing success but from redefining and reimagining success entirely.
I invite you to join me on this journey. Let's dismantle outdated frameworks and reconstruct systems that foster creativity, well-being, and sustainable growth.
Discover more and participate in transformative conversations at 99-Day Rewire. Let’s rewire together.
Read more from Ana Gioarsa
Ana Gioarsa, Independent Research & Advisory | Work, Mind & Future Systems
Ana is a researcher, consultant, and systems thinker investigating how work, neuroscience, and human behaviour intersect. With over a decade of experience leading complex projects, she now explores how autonomy and structure can coexist for sustainable high performance. Through 99-Day Rewire, Ana conducts real-time research on behavioural, cognitive, and biological shifts, examining how individuals and organisations can rethink work, creativity, and self-directed systems. She believes true transformation happens at the intersection of structure and autonomy, creativity and function, science and lived experience.
By blending research, consultancy, and writing, Ana challenges conventional work models, offering new ways to think about human potential and resilience in evolving work landscapes.
References:
Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit jobs: A theory. Simon C. Schuster.
Hock, D. (2005). One from many: VISA and the rise of chaordic organisation. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Kossek, E. E., Hammer, L. B., Kelly, E. L., C Moen, P. (2016). Designing workplace flexibility: Managing the work-family interface. In Oxford Handbook of Work and Family (pp. 53-75). Oxford University Press.
Margulies, D. S., Ghosh, S. S., Goulas, A., Falkiewicz, M., Huntenburg, J. M., Langs, G., … Smallwood, J. (2016). Situating the default-mode network along a principal gradient of macroscale cortical organisation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(44), 12574–12579.
Menon, V. (2011). Large-scale brain networks and psychopathology: A unifying triple network model. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(10), 483–506.
Microsoft. (2023). 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report: Will AI fix work? Microsoft. Mintzberg, H. (1983). Structure in fives: Designing effective organisations. Prentice Hall. Zuboff, S. (1988). In the age of the smart machine: The future of work and power. Basic Books.
