Books
June 2026 · Ebook
Working as Designed
Why systems that work still fail the people inside them.
Ten essays from The Next Evolution, sequenced as a single argument. For anyone who builds, buys, governs or lives inside large systems. Which is everyone.
In every case, the system worked exactly as it was designed to. That is the problem.
- AlexThe surgery went digital, and collecting a repeat prescription became an ordeal.
- JordanA mortgage declined by a system nobody could explain.
- MargaretThe bank closed the last branch where anyone knew Margaret by name.
One argument in four parts
When every metric stays green, the failure is not a malfunction. It was designed in.
Part IThe evidence
Part IIThe diagnosis
Part IIIThe mechanism
- What the Pilot Was Never Designed to Find
- Every department did its job
- The voice that never reaches the room
- The Company That Measured What Mattered
Part IVThe question
The people who open the essays are fictional or composite. Their circumstances are drawn from real events.
Five words asked in a design review
Who is this hardest for?
The cheapest intervention in these pages, and the rarest.
Built for an average user who does not exist.
Tested in conditions chosen to succeed, and measured by what is easy to count rather than what matters.
