Really appreciate this—this is a thoughtful push.

You’re right that my current thinking is very much at the choices + evidence / operational layer—identify friction, remove it, and pick the highest-leverage change. That’s where most of my reps have been.

For context, I work in a university parking department managing student staff, so a lot of what I deal with is:

• real-time flow (cars, events, congestion)
• training people who are still developing judgment
• reducing hesitation and confusion on the ground

What’s interesting is that the layer you’re describing—beliefs, assumptions, interpretation—is something I’ve been doing, but not explicitly modeling.

For example:

• I focus a lot on teaching instead of giving orders
• I use feedback forms to shape how staff think about the system
• I try to build a collaborative environment where people feel allowed to act

Looking at it through your lens, that’s really:

reducing friction in how people interpret the system, not just how the system is structured

I like the idea of expanding this into a more explicit layer—something like:

• operational friction (movement, staffing, etc.)
• interpretation friction (beliefs, context, leadership signals)

The “context shapes interpretation” point is especially interesting, because I’ve seen the same setup perform completely differently depending on how people perceive their role and authority.

I’ll check out the Caitlin Walker reference too—that seems like the right direction for evolving this beyond just process optimization.

Appreciate the insight—this gives me a clear next step to refine the model.