Today I am thinking about slaying dragons. No, I don’t mean the metaphorical dragons… I mean the real, scary, fire-breathing ones like in King Sorrow in Joe Hill’s epic novel that was released last year. Honestly, BEST BOOK OF 2025. 10/10 highly recommend (especially the audiobook).

Without spoiling anything, the story follows a group of friends who, in the face of pain and desperation, reach for something powerful to fix their problem. They take a really old book and summon one of those real-life, scary dragons. They don’t fully understand the rules. They don’t fully grasp the consequences. They just know they want relief.

The story then takes readers on the wild ride that is a scary, real-life dragon that is absolutely not solving their issues. It changes the system around them. It reshapes incentives. It creates new risks. And eventually, it begins operating by its own logic.

But as I was day-dreaming about this story, my mind drifted to what our metaphorical dragons look like. In organizations, dragons don’t usually have scales and wings. They look much more reasonable. They look like…

• When delivery feels slow, we implement a new framework.

• When priorities feel chaotic, we restructure to “simplify.”

• When visibility is low, we purchase a tool.

• When teams feel misaligned, we introduce more planning.

• When accountability feels fuzzy, we issue a mandate promising clarity, speed and control.

All of these decisions are summoned with logic and good intentions.

All of them powerful.

And all of them capable of changing the system in ways we don’t fully anticipate.

So here’s the uncomfortable truth: powerful systems don’t just relieve pain. They change behavior. They shift authority. They redistribute control. They create new rules, whether we meant them to or not.  

When you implement something that affects governance, incentives, or decisions, you’re not just fixing a problem. You’re altering the rules of the game. You’re shifting power. You’re redefining how work flows. You’re creating new pressures and new behaviors. Just like in King Sorrow, the thing that was meant to bring relief can start operating by its own logic. Just like in King Sorrow, what was meant to help begins to govern instead.

And this is where leaders feel trapped. Not because change failed. But because the system they installed is now shaping behavior in ways they never intended. Decision-making slows. Accountability blurs. Teams optimize for the metric instead of the mission. Governance becomes heavier instead of clearer. The dragon isn’t chaos, it’s unintended control.

Thankfully, that’s where we become your dragon slayer. At IncrementOne, we don’t believe in unleashing power without understanding its impact. We help organizations design systems that serve their strategy intentionally, before it reshapes incentives, slows decisions, or redistributes authority in ways no one planned for.  

Before a framework is implemented, before governance is formalized, before structures shift, we work with leaders to understand how incentives will change, how authority will move, and how behavior will adapt. Because every structure creates pressure. Every process creates incentives. Every metric creates trade-offs.

We do that through disciplined discovery and co-creation workshops with leadership, where we align on incentives, clarify authority, and intentionally design how governance will function in practice.  

Change is powerful. But power without understanding isn’t transformation, it’s summoning. And if we have learned anything from King Sorrow, it’s this: be careful what you summon.