Swinging the Pendulum
Spot an undesirable state, correct it — but know you'll overcorrect, so aim for the middle
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
A pattern-recognition framework for organizational and product course-correction. You periodically step back, notice something is in an undesirable state (too much differentiation, too many specialists, wrong hires), and fix it — but the framework's core insight is that the fix almost always overcorrects to the opposite undesirable extreme. Naming the pendulum lets you anticipate the overcorrection and aim for the balanced middle instead of swinging fully across.
Origin
Paul Adams of Intercom named this after repeatedly watching Intercom overcorrect across many domains — differentiation vs table stakes, generalists vs specialists, and hiring experienced outsiders who then imported the wrong culture.
Core principles
- 01Step back from everyday work to observe when something has drifted into an undesirable state.
- 02The temptation after spotting a problem is to overcorrect all the way to the opposite extreme.
- 03This happens across every domain: product mix, team composition, hiring philosophy.
- 04Sometimes you must swing hard (AI, mobile) — the real skill is knowing how far and where the boundary is.
- 05To know where the boundary is you often have to cross it, feel the pain, be humble about getting it wrong, and correct.
How to run it
- 1
Observe the undesirable state
Take a step back from daily execution and make the observation that something is in an undesirable state — e.g. all differentiation and no table stakes, or a team that can't operate in ambiguity.
- 2
Correct it — but expect to overshoot
Fix the problem, while consciously naming that the natural move is to overcorrect to the opposite extreme.
Pro tip Write down what the opposite failure mode looks like before you start correcting, so you can catch the overshoot.
Watch out Intercom hired 'loads of people who've done it before' to go up-market and overcorrected — the experts imported their old company's culture instead of being Intercom.
- 3
Aim for the balanced middle
Rather than parking the pendulum at either extreme, deliberately land in the middle — e.g. hire people with 'a bit' of specialism, enough to help but still adaptable.
Pro tip For a genuine paradigm shift (AI, mobile) you may swing high on purpose — but still balance (Intercom stayed ~50/50 between AI differentiation and table-stakes depth).
Watch out Highly specialized hires thrive in big companies but can drown in a fluid, ambiguous startup culture.
In the wild
Around year five, Intercom decided none of them had scaled before ('do we even know what we're doing') and overcorrected by hiring many senior people who had. They brought the culture and ways of working of their prior companies, which mostly didn't fit because Intercom wasn't trying to be a bigger company that already existed.
→ Recognized as a full overcorrection; the lesson was to hire people with some relevant experience but still adaptable to Intercom's ambiguity.
Common mistakes
Overcorrecting to the opposite extreme
Fixing 'too much differentiation' by building only table stakes (or vice versa) just creates the mirror-image undesirable state.
Hiring pure specialists into an ambiguous culture
Specialists who thrive in structured big companies can struggle and drown in a fluid startup that leans into ambiguity.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and leaders making organizational and roadmap course-corrections who keep oscillating between extremes
Not ideal for
Genuine paradigm shifts where a hard, sustained swing is actually correct and moderation would be a mistake
From the transcript
“swing in the pendulum means you take a step back from everyday work life and you kind of make the observation that something's in an…”
“the Temptation is that you overcorrect and we've done this so many times in so many domains”
“to know where the boundary is you got to cross it and Crossing it's painful but if you don't cross it you'll never know”
From the episode
What AI means for your product strategy
Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom)