The weakest leverage point, according to Meadows, is the adjustable parameters of the system. These include for example the tax rate, or requirements regarding the energy efficiency of products. A significant proportion of political debate revolves around values of such parameters. Although changes to parameter values can result in a significant change in some part of a system, the effects are often short-lived. Changes to parameter values can easily be overruled, and changes in the system or the environment can make the specific parameter obsolete. However, if the change in the parameter values causes changes to the wider system structure, the impacts can be more permanent.

The next leverage point is the sixes of buffer stocks in the system. Buffer stocks are usually physical matter, such as water in a reservoir, fish in the sea, or trees in a forest. When buffer stocks are large relative to the flows of material in and out of the system, the system behaves predictably. Enlarging the buffer stock is usually expensive, difficult or impossible, and hence the size of buffer stocks is not an efficient leverage point. 

The tenth leverage point are the structures that determine the patterns of stocks and flows in the system. These include things like roads and railways and other material infrastructure, but can also refer to e.g. the demographic structure of a population. While these structures are enormously important for the functioning of the systems, changing them is also expensive, difficult or impossible, so they are usually not effective leverage points. However, when new infrastructure is being developed, designing the system so that it serves sustainability is imperative.

The ninth leverage point is the length of delays in the system, relative to the rate of desired changes in the functioning of the system. For example, changing the energy production system requires expensive investments to new powerplants, making changes in the energy system slow compared to the desired speed of change.

Delays in the system can cause serious problems when they are either too long or too short in relation to the rate of desired changes in the system. Many delays are difficult or impossible to change, making delays an ineffective leverage point; often it is more sensible to adjust operations according to the delays of the system. For example, it would have been sensible to start the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources already decades ago, so that delays in the transition would not have become an obstacle in the mitigation of climate change.

The eight leverage point is the strength of balancing feedbacks (also called negative feedbacks). In order to be stable and maintain its functions, the system needs to return to its initial state after disturbances. Familiar balancing feedbacks are those related to maintaining constant body temperature. If our body temperature rises too much, we remove our clothes or start to sweat, and the body temperature falls. And if the body temperature falls too much, we put on clothes or start to shiver, and the body temperature rises.

In systems where security is of utmost importance, like nuclear power plants, such balancing feedbacks are carefully planned and are backed up with multiple overlapping systems.

In growth-based economy, however, removing and weakening balancing feedbacks is customary when striving to increase growth. This decreases the stability of the system, as can be seen in recurring financial crises.

For balancing mechanisms to function correctly, the mechanism must receive accurate and up to date information. For example, if it is thought that the market mechanism and customer choice leads to more sustainable production systems, the prices for environmentally and socially harmful products should be higher than the price of harmful products, so that their demand would fall. Now the opposite is true. This example underscores the need to change the system instead of placing the responsibility on individual consumers.

The seventh leverage point are reinforcing feedbacks (also called positive feedbacks). Reinforcing feedbacks reinforce and accelerate a process that has already begun: global warming will melt permafrost, which will increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, further warming the climate, which will melt more permafrost, and so on. Reinforcing feedback leads to a vicious circle, and eventually leads to the collapse of the system. There are no systems in nature where reinforcing feedback is not balanced by a balancing feedback.

However, societies – some more than others – have a number of reinforcing feedbacks that are not balanced by balancing feedbacks. When economic growth is sought, reinforcing feedbacks are even strengthened to accelerate growth. The increase in inequality is also based on positive feedback, when the opportunities for success are primarily offered to those who are already successful, rather than to those who did not have had such a great start to life in the first place.

The sixth leverage point is information about the system. In her lecture, Meadows showed examples about collapse of fish stocks because the fish catches showed no sign of decrease before the collapse was already inevitable. If the actors in the system do not know what is happening in the system, they will not be able to make sensible decisions either.

Increasing the flow of information about the state of the system is a good leverage point. Sharing information does not cost anything, but it can have a profound impact on the way the system operates. For example, information regarding the economic connections of policy makers, companies' supply chains, or the state of the environment, can enable citizens and voters to change the system to be more sustainable.

The fifth leverage point is the rules of the system. All systems, from school classes and sports clubs to companies, states and international trade systems, have rules regarding what can and cannot be done in the system, and what happens if the rules are broken. Having influence on the rules of the system is a strong lever to change the system, and even more important are the rules on how the rules are decided.

The fourth leverage point is the ability of the system to adapt and to reorganize itself. If the system is permanently locked to a particular structure, it will sooner or later be destroyed by pressures from inside or outside the system. Sustainable systems adapt to change by changing their structures, as happens in biological evolution, for example.

In order for a system to be able to change its structure, it must be able to tolerate the internal variation from which new structures can be formed when needed. Adaptation of the system takes place through trial and error and many experimentations, which in the short term cause uncertainties and inefficiencies, but allows the system to survive in the longer term.

The third leverage point is the goal of the system, which is often difficult to figure out. According to Meadows, systems, such as organizations or companies, develop their own goals that no one has necessarily stated out loud or devised.

Perceiving the purpose of the system requires figuring out what the system actually produces. Sometimes – or, in fact, quite often – the actual goal of the system is to preserve and secure the system itself, in addition to any other goals stated out loud.

The goal of a system is a strong leverage point that also individuals may change if they have sufficient influence based on position or personal characteristics, as well as the ability and willingness to use it, to change the system. Various examples can be found, from Hitler’s Nazi Germany to the peaceful dismantling of apartheid by Nelson Mandela and other civil rights activists.

Worldviews, or paradigms, are the general ideas people and the society hold about the nature and structure of the world, about the place of humans in the world, about morality, society and nature. As such, worldviews shape everything people do, and the prevailing worldview is perhaps most clearly visible in the society’s systems.

Most of the time we don’t notice the limitations in our thinking because we take certain things as self-evident, even when they are not. The transition from a geocentric to heliocentric view of the Solar system, or seeing biodiversity as a result of evolution rather than divine creation, are some examples of past changes in worldviews.

Issues related to worldviews also underlie our unsustainable systems, such as belief in the ability of markets to lead to the best outcome for all, or the belief that economic growth is essential to secure well-being (these ideas are not, in fact, very old).

An individual’s way of thinking can change in an instant when he or she understands something in a new way. The prevailing worldview in a society, on the other hand, does not change abruptly, as it is supported by many systems in the society – by systems that are born from that worldview.

Changes in the prevailing or popular worldview usually take place in stages. When the weaknesses and inconsistencies of the old worldview become more and more apparent, the need for a new way of thinking also becomes apparent. At this point, many different ways of thinking can emerge to the fore, one of which eventually becomes the most popular. Over time, the most popular way of thinking takes the form of a new prevailing way of thinking – a new paradigm. However, many people will not abandon their old way of thinking, and the final change only takes place with the new generation stepping in.

The last and the strongest leverage point for changing systems is transcending paradigms.

By letting go of “certainties” and “truths”, and overcoming the steep dividing lines associated with them, we are more free to explore the world and weigh different options, as well as to hear and appreciate different points of view. This allows us to find better solutions to the problems we encounter, and to work alongside others to tackle them.