Years ago, a community was struggling. Losing members for decades. The ones left? They hated each other and loved to be grumpy about everything.

New leaders then took an unexpected approach.

They realized that sometimes the thing you're trying to save is what's in the way. So, they decided to let the community die. No more life support. They told people, If you want to meet, fine. But for a few months, we're stopping everything and starting fresh.

Today the community has found new life, new purpose and is serving its neighborhood without grumpiness.

The lesson here isn't just about letting go of broken things and starting anew. It's that sometimes the broken thing is the real problem. And fixing it or replacing it might not be worth it.

Action question

How can you make sure that when you're doing service work, you're considering that the organization itself might be the problem?

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

• Written with AI help: This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen.