Summary
The Washing Machine is a model of how systems change, from ‘Building Better Systems’ (2020), a green paper by Jennie Winhall and Charles Leadbeater. It answers the usual tale of disruptive innovation, in which outside challengers displace tired incumbents. In public systems especially, they argue, change more often comes when “the old and the new combine and clash, collaborate and compete” in a turbulent middle, like a washing machine on its spin cycle.
Three of the paper’s leading roles matter there: insider-outsiders who see their own system’s failings, entrepreneurial ventures that embody a different system, and convenors who bring them together. Hybrids emerge. Change, they suggest, grows likelier as more people step in.
Rationale
Part 2 cites this paper for its three levels. Its spin cycle adds a caution we share: the new rarely replaces the old outright, and people spend a long time living with both.