Most management theories and practices are based on a deterministic cause and effect principles, for example, incentivize employees with more money and they will deliver more/work harder. However, one of the core properties of a CAS is nonlinear or disproportionate causation, that is, a small action resulting in a disproportionate effect and vice versa. Actions that are inexpensive but lead to significant positive outcomes are called lever points. These points can be identified through experimentation or learned based on patterns of empirical evidence.

Agile practices have many such lever points, which enhance agility, for example, putting up a visual board to depict the pipeline of work in a process usually has a highly positive impact in terms of identifying blockers, managing dependencies, and focusing on higher priority items. Another example is a daily stand-up meeting.

Lever points can also be used quite effectively in influencing culture change. A senior leader could participate in a retrospective exercise to learn about why something failed and then encourage the team to learn from that mistake, sending positive signals across the enterprise, especially if the employees of that business are generally afraid of failure. Socializing success stories is another lever point that has usually resulted in broad-based positive outcomes across companies.