Ballup: When a System Is Trying to Grow
Most people who work with systems — whether it’s a small team, a company, or a process — learn to look for bottlenecks.
A bottleneck is a clear idea:
Something is slowing things down. Something’s too narrow for the volume passing through it.
It’s a useful metaphor, borrowed from physics.
And it helps us identify problems that can be fixed or optimized.
But not all tension in a system is a bottleneck.
Sometimes, tension isn’t asking to be removed.
Sometimes, it’s asking to be understood.
A Different Kind of Signal
There are moments when a part of a system keeps creating friction:
- A role that no longer fits its person
- A workflow that keeps getting bypassed
- A form that’s always being changed
- A report that people keep misreading
- A meeting that never seems to resolve anything
You “fix” it — but the issue comes back.
You streamline it — but new complexity takes its place.
You automate it — and discover that no one uses the output.
These aren’t just inefficiencies.
They’re not just technical bugs or human errors.
They’re structural pressure points.
They’re places where the current system can’t hold what’s trying to emerge.
And that brings us to a new word:
Introducing: The Ballup
A ballup is what we’re calling the opposite of a bottleneck.
- A bottleneck is where the system is too narrow for its current load.
- A ballup is where the system is too narrow for its next stage.
It’s the moment when:
The structure is outdated, but the need is alive, and the pressure to evolve is quietly building.
Ballups often show up as repeated friction — but they’re not asking to be patched.
They’re asking to be rethought.
Why Give It a Name?
Because language shapes what we can notice.
Most teams are taught to fix bottlenecks — and they should.
But they’re rarely taught to listen to what friction is trying to say.
By naming “ballup,” we offer a simple shift:
Instead of asking, “What’s broken?” we start asking, “What’s trying to grow?”
This shift changes how we respond:
- From efficiency to understanding
- From control to redesign
- From fixing parts to evolving the whole
Naming helps us see.
Seeing helps us change.
How to Spot a Ballup
You’ll know you’re facing a ballup when:
- The same issue returns in slightly different forms
- Workarounds keep emerging organically
- People instinctively avoid or ignore a certain part of the system
- A change feels “off,” but it’s hard to explain why
- Tension rises without a clear cause
These are not signs of failure.
They’re signs of misfit between the structure you have — and the reality you’re now in.
So What Do You Do With a Ballup?
You pause.
You ask:
- What is this tension pointing to?
- What truth are we not acknowledging?
- What wants to evolve here — and how might we support it?
You don’t rush to fix it.
You listen to it.
Because the system is talking — through its symptoms.
And sometimes, the most intelligent move you can make
is to create the conditions where something new can take shape.
This Is Not a Fancy Idea
It’s a very human one.
You’ve probably felt it in your own body:
- A posture in yoga that feels uncomfortable — but isn’t pain, it’s opening
- A conversation you’ve avoided — that’s actually your next step
- A moment of tension — that turns out to be a turning point
That’s a ballup too.
It’s not just in software.
It’s in relationships. In learning. In growth.
The discomfort doesn’t mean “something’s wrong.”
It means: “you’re at the edge of what you’ve built — and something else wants to begin.”
Final Thought: Why This Matters
Most systems fail slowly — not because they break, but because they refuse to evolve.
They miss the signals.
They ignore the pressure.
They optimize the noise instead of listening for the signal.
But if you can learn to recognize ballups —
if you can lean toward friction, not away from it —
then you can begin to work in a new way.
Not just solving problems.
But midwifing emergence.
A mix of what’s on my mind, what I’m learning, and what I’m going through.
Co-created with AI. 🤖
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