Duck, Pork & Shuttlecock. I know, it sounds like the setup to a bad joke or a quirky restaurant special.

It’s actually an interesting story about how tiny shifts in one corner of the world can knock over dominoes somewhere entirely different. And it unlocks a few surprisingly practical leadership lessons.

Stick with me; by the end you may never look at a shuttlecock or your next decision the same way.

Plates Change. Markets Move.

For a long time, duck held pride of place on the Chinese plate. It wasn’t just taste; it nourished an entire waterfowl ecosystem (farmers, traders, processors). Then, quietly at first, one meal at a time, the plate that once held duck began making room for pork.

Was it a genuine change in taste? Or was it because pork became more affordable?

Surely, when pork got cheaper and more abundant, preferences often “discover” new favourites. Either way, economics or palate, whichever came first, the fact remained: a shift was underway, and farmers did what farmers (and businesses) do; they followed the demand curve.

Economics is a supply-and-demand game. Since pigs, unlike their feathered counterparts, are quicker to raise and easier to sell when pork is riding a price dip. Barns filled with snouts, not beaks.

Logical. Efficient. Profitable. So far, so good, right?

Until the ripple became a wave.

You might be thinking: a bunch of people swapping meal choices, what's the big deal?

What wave!?

From Kitchen to Court

Here’s the bit most of us don’t think about while ordering dinner: ducks and geese don’t just feed families; they also feather shuttlecocks. Fewer birds mean fewer quality feathers. And before long, badminton halls felt the draft.

Prices climbed. Clubs stretched budgets. Players stretched shuttle life. A culinary nudge became a sports headache. The ripple became a wave.

A tiny shift, dinner plates favoring pork, collided with a totally different industry. Not because anyone meant harm. Simply because systems are… well, systems.

So, What Does This Teach a Leader?

Most leadership decisions are made from honest places: protect margins, simplify workflows, respond to a market tug. Up close, the logic holds.

But organizations aren’t a set of sealed rooms; they are a single living organism. Touch one nerve, and some other part twitches.

• Cut a “small” budget over here; a customer experience thread frays over there.

• Switch a policy to speed approvals; suddenly your risk posture springs a leak.

• Reassign a team to the “urgent thing”; an “unrelated” KPI wilts three months later.

If you need corporate déjà vu, think Kodak. In the late 1970s, an engineer at Kodak invented one of the world’s first digital cameras. It was clunky by today’s standards, but it worked.

Kodak’s leadership, fearing it might hurt their profitable film business, slow-walked the idea. They assumed they could control the pace of change in photography by protecting their existing revenue stream.

The ripple effect? Competitors embraced digital. Consumer habits shifted. By the time Kodak tried to catch up, the market had moved on. A single decision in one “market” (protecting film) reshaped the company’s entire future, but not in their favor. Kodak was chasing a parade that had already passed!

Different arenas, dinner plates and darkrooms, but similar pattern: decisions that make perfect sense through the keyhole looks very different from the balcony.

Three Habits That Change the Game

Good decisions don’t just solve the problem in front of you; they steady the parts you can’t see yet. These three habits help you lead from the balcony, not the keyhole.

1. Think in systems, not silos

Before you greenlight the obvious move, step up to the balcony and see the whole board. See the interconnected ecosystem in which your decision exists. Every decision lives in an ecosystem; change one element and rest shifts, sometimes softly, sometimes with a thud.

Make it a habit to decide in systems, not just within the silo at hand. so when you are about to act, pressure-test the move:

• Am I looking through a keyhole or from the balcony?

• If this works exactly as planned, which other systems shifts because of it?

Take note, small, “local” moves can trigger distant, expensive waves in places you weren’t even watching.

2. Trace the path, not just the payoff

A shift on the dinner plate rippled into sports equipment. Who would have thought! Exactly the point.

Second order and third order effects hide in the periphery, which is why leaders have to map them before acting. Decisions often make perfect sense up close. Farmers follow prices from duck to pork. Kodak protects film while digital looks clunky. Logical locally but costly system-wide.

Remember logic in isolation can be dangerous. Without mapping the second-order effects — the “what happens next, and then what?” — you risk creating a future you never intended.

And here’s the kicker: these effects often appear far away from the place the decision was made, in markets, teams, or industries that weren’t even on the radar at the time. Before you pull the trigger, trace the path:

• Who might this affect two steps down the line? Three?

• What becomes scarce because of this? (time, talent, trust, budget, feathers…)

Don’t just model costs; model consequences. A simple one-pager — if → then → then — can save months of clean-up later. If you can’t sketch the ripple, don’t make the splash.

3. Stand in the aftermath.

Leadership isn’t just about the decision you make. Positive or negative, it is about seeing, and taking responsibility for the whole picture, not just the first move.

When the ripples reach the shore, don’t pretend you didn’t make the splash. Name it. Own it. Lead the recovery. This is how to practice owning the consequences:

• Say it out loud. Here’s what happened. Here’s our part. Here’s what we have learned.

• Make it right. Mitigate the harm, rebalance what got squeezed, support the people who carried the cost.

Own the good, own the bad, and show your people that accountability isn’t a punishment — it’s part of the privilege of leading.

A Final Thought

From dinner plates to badminton courts, from film canisters to camera sensors the pattern holds. Small, sensible choices in one “market” can rewrite the script in another. That doesn’t make the first choice wrong; it makes the view too narrow.

Before your next “simple” decision, try this tiny checklist:

• Who/what gets squeezed if this succeeds?

• What becomes scarce because of this?

• Where could this land three steps out — and who will have to carry it?

If you can see those ripples early, you can steer them. If you can’t, they will steer you.

And the next time you hold a shuttlecock, remember somewhere, a dinner choice had something to say about your game.