two steps forward
and one step back
words by Preston Adrien | Eval Design Studio
October 14, 2025
Many strategies assume progress is linear and lasting, treating any disruptions as anomalies or failures.
While progress can hold under the right conditions, it can also incite a response.
establishing an alibi
If I’m ever falsely accused of a crime, I hope it’s one that took place on the night of November 8, 2016. My alibi would be compelling.
I was reconnecting with friends at a "Let's Watch Hilary Clinton Win the Election" party in Houston. I’m in videos dancing to Desert Rose Band's One Step Forward and Two Steps Back, and I capped the night off with a 20-minute rant about the election results that I later posted to Facebook.
Yes, Facebook. It was a different time.
It wasn’t shock I expressed in this rant, though. I wasn’t surprised; I was reminded: change is not linear, and progress almost always has its consequences.
when progress provokes
Barack Obama’s election in 2008 was seen by many as a historic leap forward.
Nevertheless, economic frustrations, distrust in institutions, racial resentment, and despair over unmet promises coalesced to form the Tea Party movement.
Though it lacked a concrete agenda, the Tea Party tapped the frustrations of mostly white, evangelical working-class voters who felt left behind by the future Obama represented.
By 2016, the Tea Party's energy and infrastructure had been harnessed into Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
While MAGA's pushback against Obama is intensely personal, it remains deeply ideological: challenging multiracial democracy, cosmopolitanism, and intellectualism, all while promising to “take back" a country, power, and influence that was never lost.
takeaways for strategists
For strategists, the current state of U.S. politics, marked by deepening divisions and policies directly aimed at undoing progress, is a reminder that meaningful work will provoke a response.
Disrupted progress happens in all of our work, regardless of sector. Here's how it might show up in yours:
Disruption | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Public Pushback | Opposition that occurs when a business or organization’s actions (or lack thereof) defy expectations | Boycotts against Nike for an ad featuring Colin Kaepernick |
Violence (Physical and Structural) | Direct interpersonal violence or the use of systems (courts, laws, funding) to halt or reverse progress | Legislative attacks against queer people or women’s right to bodily autonomy |
Institutional Sabotage | Slowing or reversing progress by restricting or blocking the flow of resources | Senior leadership or managers undermining initiatives |
Disillusionment | Movements or initiatives lose energy due to defeat, upset, or despair | Tunisia's slide back to authoritarianism after the election of Kais Saied |
Collapse of Trust | People no longer believe systems will deliver change | “Silent quitting” or attrition during program initiatives or continuous improvement processes |
toward strategies that
withstand disruption
Many strategies are built (often for investors or donors) on the assumption that change is predictable, linear, and lasting. Meanwhile, standard tools like SWOT or PESTLE assume stable conditions. Here are four recommendations for designing and reviewing strategies:
01
Consider Backsliding a Phase, Not a Risk
If your strategy only accounts for forward motion, it could break as soon as momentum falters. Consider naming backsliding a predictable phase. Anticipate what forms of resistance might occur, and from whom, with these questions:
- Who loses power, status, or control if this change succeeds? What is a likely response if a loss of power is perceived?
- If this strategy begins to work, who might try to stop it and how? What approaches have they used in the past?
- Are we sufficiently prepared to continue/adapt our work in the face of that response? How can we get prepared if not?
Note: To lead effectively through complexity, we must distinguish between backsliding and failure. Failure often stems from poor planning, listening, or fidelity. Disruptions and backsliding are a natural part of change that even good strategies will elicit.
The key is to learn from failure to continuously improve, while planning for disruption and building systems to withstand it.
02
Draw on Alternate Change Models
Linear models rarely hold. Consider integrating elements from alternative models that better reflect how change realistically unfolds, including:
- Dialectical models: progress emerges through tension, contradiction, and response.
- Cyclical models: understand change as repeating arcs (e.g., progress to resistance to adaptation and so on).
- Emergent systems: focus on iterative, self-organizing actions that respond to complexity.
- Conflict-driven: assume friction is inherent, not accidental.
This flips strategies from an optimistic roadmap to resilient hypotheses.
03
Spot Signs of Resistance Early
Identify indicators that resistance and/or backsliding are emerging. These might include:
- Shifts in media sentiment / public discourse
- Legal challenges or funding cuts
- Sudden countermobilization (e.g., boycotts or political targeting)
- Regularly collect data against these indicators to stay ahead of potential changes that affect your strategy.
Also, consider building scenario planning into your strategy development:
- What if opposition intensifies?
- What if public opinion turns?
- What if a key partner backs out?
04
Design for Asymmetry
Change doesn’t spread evenly. One group’s gain may coincide with another’s loss. Change may benefit one geography more than another. Backsliding may result in more severe consequences for some people than others. Rather than assuming universal effects of progress or backsliding, design for asymmetry by asking:
- Who is most vulnerable if there’s pushback?
- What protective mechanisms (legal, relational, material) can be built in?
- Who is still showing up? Who feels safe? Who still believes that change is possible?
- How will we monitor varying levels of progress and backlash between groups, areas, or communities?
- How will we repair trust or momentum after a backlash or backsliding?
Despite everything we know, we sometimes cling to hopes that history has taught us to abandon. We hope that progress will be straightforward, linear, or predictable. But the line dance of progress will always include a few steps forward and a few steps back.
This piece is a product of Eval Design Studio. We offer evaluation, strategy, and artistic data communication services to deepen collective knowledge, strengthen movements, and dismantle unjust systems.
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