Using critical mass as a model helps us understand the effort required to achieve sustained change. Systems have certain inflection points where they change from one state to another. It doesn’t help us to focus solely on the tipping point and ignore the work required to bring a system there. Because the inputs that tip a system into a new state tend not to have a linear effect—the final unit of input that leads to the change in state has an outsized marginal impact—we are disproportionately impressed by them.
