The Association Blog

First in a five-part series based on Dan Heath’s keynote speech at The Annual Conference

We’ve all been there. You may be there right now, if you’re dealing with overcrowding and a shelter filled to overcapacity. Trapped in a system that works technically – but could be so much better. Things get done, but not well. The frustration builds, yet the process never quite feels broken enough to demand an overhaul. Maybe it shows up as a backlog of animals waiting for spay/neuter appointments, or a desperate need for foster homes alongside a lengthy volunteer-orientation process.

Author and speaker Dan Heath calls this “being stuck.” And in his keynote at last year’s Annual Conference, he gave one of the most vivid examples of what that looks like – and more importantly, how to fix it.

A package lost in the system

Heath took us to an unlikely place: the receiving area of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Picture this: a nurse orders medication. It ships across the country in a day or two, thanks to FedEx. But once it arrives at the hospital? It can take another three days just to make it from the basement to the third floor.

Why? The system is cluttered, chaotic and cobbled together. The receiving area looks more like a hoarder’s attic than a logistics hub. People are constantly calling, checking on their packages, sending staff on scavenger hunts through a mess of deliveries.

And yet (here’s the kicker) it’s not considered broken. It’s just… the way things have always worked.

The system isn’t broken. It’s working as designed.

This is where Heath dropped one of his favorite quotes:

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

In other words, if your process consistently delivers chaos, inefficiency, or delays—i.e. animals stuck in the system—that’s not an accident. That’s what the system is set up to produce. Whether anyone meant for it or not.

How to change this? How to move from “stuck” to “unstuck”?

You don’t need more force. You need leverage.

“When we try to change big systems,” Heath said, it often feels like trying to move a massive boulder. Our instinct is to shove harder. More effort, more meetings, more frustration. But that rarely works.

Instead, we need two things:

1. Leverage points – Small, strategic areas where a well-placed change can ripple outward and create a big impact.
   
2. Restacked resources – Rather than searching for more time in the day, resources, or staff (spoiler: you won’t find them), it’s smart to reallocate what you already have in smarter ways.
   

Heath explains that in complex systems, you can’t fix everything—but you can fix something. That “something” should be a leverage point: a small, doable intervention that leads to outsized impact. In the shelter, that might mean extending your hours of operation by one hour, or assigning a volunteer to photograph animals so you can get them posted on the website and in front of potential adopters (P.S. you can always swap out the photo later).

Study the bright spots

To find these leverage points, Heath introduced one of five key strategies: study the bright spots This means rather than obsessing only over what’s broken, you deliberately look at what’s already working—even in a flawed system.

Heath gave the example of Bobby and the counselor. A ninth-grade student named Bobby was constantly in trouble due to a traumatic home life. When a new counselor, Murphy, met him, he didn’t ask what was wrong. He said, “Tell me about the times you don’t get in trouble at school.”

This question unearthed three specific things that worked well for Bobby in one teacher’s class:

1. She greeted him at the door.
2. She gave him slightly easier work.
3. She always made sure he understood the instructions.

Murphy took those insights to Bobby’s other teachers, who implemented them. The result? Bobby’s behavioral issues significantly dropped—from 4–5 disruptive classes a day to just 1–2.

Key takeaway: You don’t need to fix the root cause (like Bobby’s home life) to make meaningful progress. Small, strategic changes can unlock transformation.

Studying the bright spots is just one way to uncover leverage points that lead to lasting change, but it’s only the beginning. In the rest of the talk, Heath unpacked four more strategies that are equally powerful in helping us identify small actions with big impact. Stay tuned for the next blog, where we’ll detail the second strategy.

In the meantime, we want to hear from you. In your experience, what makes it hard for you and your team to focus on bright spots instead of problems? Let us know in the comments below.