Structural Parallels, Part 2: The A-B-A'
Part 2 of the Structural Parallels series. Transformation follows a universal structure. Across music, biology, negotiation, and crisis response, every adaptive system operates through the same three-phase pattern: establishment, disruption, and resolution. This essay reveals how the same logic that governs a melody's return or an immune response's recovery also determines whether organizations adapt or collapse. By tracing where systems skip, stall, or refuse the "B" phase of disruption, it exposes why transformation fails from breaking the structural rhythm that governs all successful change.
THE SYNTAX OF SYSTEMS
Every song you've ever remembered follows the same structure. The verse establishes the emotional baseline. The chorus disrupts it with new intensity. When the verse returns, it carries the weight of what the chorus revealed. You hear the same notes differently. The melody hasn't changed. Your understanding has.
This is the A-B-A' pattern.
Musical composition, negotiation strategy, and crisis response appear unrelated. One exists in acoustic space, another in strategic interaction, and the third in organizational process. The answer is structural. Beneath surface differences lies an identical architecture: the fundamental structure that governs establishment, disruption, and resolution across all adaptive systems.
The A-B-A' pattern follows a precise sequence: A → B → A'
A establishes the baseline
B disrupts that stability
A' resolves at a new equilibrium, transformed by what disruption revealed
This three-phase structure represents the minimum architecture for adaptive change. Two phases cannot distinguish the signal from the noise. Four phases introduce inefficiency. Three phases create the essential rhythm of transformation.
Long before modern systems theory, ancient Egypt embedded this understanding in civilization. Ma'at referred to the shared understanding of how the world should function: balance, predictability, coherence. Isfet represented disruption: the moment when the existing order could no longer accurately interpret conditions. Restoration was never a return to the past; it was a recalibrated baseline shaped by what disruption revealed.¹
This pattern recurs across disciplines because it captures something fundamental about how systems perceive, process, and adapt to change:
Music Composition
Verse (A): Establishes melodic theme and emotional baseline
Chorus (B): Introduces tension through contrast
Return to Verse (A’): Resolves tension, theme now enriched by what chorus revealed
Immune Response
Homeostasis (A): Stable internal conditions through continuous monitoring
Detection (B): Inflammatory response and antibody production
Equilibrium (A’): Stability restored with enhanced pathogen recognition
Negotiation Dynamics
Opening positions (A): Each party stakes boundaries and non-negotiables
Concessions (B): Probe limits of acceptable compromise
Final agreement (A’): Modified initial positions, transformed through testing
Crisis Response
Normal operations (A): Established protocols and resource allocation
Shock event (B): Forces deviation beyond standard procedures
New baseline (A’): Stability restored with crisis learning embedded
The pattern appears universal because it reflects how information gets processed under constraint.
Structural Identity Across Domains
The power of recognizing A-B-A' lies in structural identity. When a biological immune response shares the same pattern as organizational crisis management, this represents identical logic operating in different contexts.
An ecosystem with tens of thousands of species can undergo catastrophic stress and recover to stability without external intervention. The same three-phase structure governs that recovery. This universality exists because it represents the minimum architecture for processing change: distinguish deviation, integrate learning, restore coherence.
Organizations that recognize this architecture can borrow proven implementations across domains. Aviation crisis protocols inform healthcare error management. Military doctrine translates to product development. The transfer works because the underlying structure is identical.
When systems deviate from A-B-A', they generate friction and failure.
The Failure Modes
Premature Optimization: Skipping Phase B
The system collapses back to the initial state by imposing old constraints onto new capabilities.
Condition: A technology firm deploys AI tools, then forces them into legacy workflows.
Consequence: Businesses investing billions in AI, 95% report zero ROI because deviation was eliminated before discovering which processes drove performance.²
A (capability) → A (standardization)
Skip disruption, and you optimize for yesterday's problems.
What they should have done: Allow experimentation period. Let teams discover new workflows before standardizing. Test which constraints were necessary versus historical artifacts.
Premature Optimization: Skipping Phase B
The system remains trapped in continuous disruption, burning resources without building stable capability.
Condition: Organizations face persistent workforce instability, cycling through talent faster than knowledge can transfer.
Consequence: With 46% of leaders reporting retention challenges, employees leave before knowledge stabilizes. Organizations cannot retain institutional memory.³
B (continuous turnover) → B (perpetual rebuilding)
Without resolution, there is no transformation. Only exhaustion.
What they should have done: Document learning during disruption. Create and incentive knowledge transfer protocols. Build stability checkpoints even during transformation.
False Stability: Refusing Phase B
The system treats the baseline as the permanent truth, refusing to test assumptions under stress.
Condition: Financial institutions maintain legacy systems despite mounting threats.
Consequence: When compliance becomes unavoidable, technical debt triples transition costs. 63% of financial firms carry critical vulnerabilities that have remained unfixed for years.⁴
A (status quo) → A (institutional rigidity)
The system remains stagnate and calcified, becoming unadaptable.
What they should have done: Schedule controlled disruptions. Stress-test systems periodically. Create safe environments for controlled failure and learning. Invest in development and market alignment.
Implication
The A-B-A' pattern is descriptive: a recognition of how information processing works under constraint. Organizations don't choose whether to follow it. They choose whether to recognize when they're breaking it.
Leaders who recognize the pattern gain a diagnostic advantage. Transformation failures become classifiable: skipped deviation, trapped disruption, refused stress-testing.
The pattern governs change, whether recognized or not. What varies is the organizational discipline to complete the cycle. The difference between inertia, collapse, and adaptation isn't resources or talent. It's the structural understanding to execute the full A-B-A' rhythm.
References
Mark, J. J. (2016). Ancient Egyptian Government. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Government/
MIT NANDA Initiative. (2025). The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025. https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/most-companies-saw-zero-return-on-ai-investments-study/496144
J.P. Morgan Commercial Banking. (2025). U.S. 2025 Business Leaders Outlook Report. https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/outlook/business-leaders-outlook/2025-us-business-leaders-outlook
Veracode. (2025). State of Software Security Report - Financial Services.https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/11/04/veracode-financial-services-security-debt/