The Most Dangerous Words in Advocacy: “That’s Just How It Works”

There is a phrase that can stop reform faster than almost anything else:

“That’s just how it works.”

You hear it in government offices.

You hear it in nonprofits.

You hear it in military and veteran programs.

You hear it in benefits systems, healthcare, legislation, employment programs, and bureaucracies of every kind.

Someone points out a problem.

Someone asks why a process is unnecessarily difficult.

Someone identifies a gap that hurts people.

And eventually, somebody shrugs and says:

“That’s just how it works.”

As though the existence of a bad system is somehow proof that the bad system should continue.

“How It Works” Is Not the Same as “How It Should Work”

Every system has rules.

Every agency has procedures.

Every organization has policies.

And yes, some rules exist for good reasons.

But there is an enormous difference between explaining why a process exists and using the process itself as an excuse not to change it.

When someone says, “That’s just how it works,” my next question is usually:

Why?

Why does it work that way?

Who decided it?

When was the policy created?

What problem was it originally supposed to solve?

Does that problem still exist?

Who benefits from the current system?

Who gets hurt by it?

And perhaps most importantly:

Can we do it better?

Those are the questions advocacy is supposed to ask.

Bureaucracy Has a Survival Instinct

Broken systems have an incredible ability to keep themselves alive.

Sometimes nobody even remembers why a policy exists.

A form requires information because another form required it 20 years ago.

A department follows a procedure because the previous department followed it.

A program excludes someone because the regulation was written before that population was considered.

A law creates an unintended consequence, but fixing it would require another law, another regulation, another committee, another hearing, or another budget discussion.

Eventually, the inconvenience becomes institutionalized.

People stop questioning it.

New employees are taught the process.

New advocates are told to work within it.

And suddenly:

“That’s just how it works.”

No one deliberately designed the maze.

Everyone just keeps adding walls.

The People Navigating the System See the Problems First

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is assuming the people administering a program understand it better than the people living under it.

They understand different parts of it.

The administrator knows the rules.

The person trying to use the system knows where those rules fail.

That matters.

A surviving spouse sitting at a kitchen table with three different agencies telling her three different things sees something that may never appear on a policy spreadsheet.

A veteran spending hours trying to determine which office handles a benefit understands something that may never make it into an annual report.

A military family trying to move benefits between states understands where federal and state programs fail to communicate.

A caregiver filling out the same information for the sixth time understands inefficiency in a way the people designing the forms may never experience.

Those experiences are not merely complaints.

They are data.

“We’ve Always Done It This Way”

That is the close cousin of “That’s just how it works.”

And it is equally dangerous.

“We’ve always done it this way” explains history.

It does not justify policy.

Plenty of systems we once considered normal have been changed because people eventually asked whether they still made sense.

Technology changes.

Families change.

Military service changes.

Healthcare changes.

The workforce changes.

Society changes.

If our policies never change with them, eventually the system stops serving people and starts serving itself.

Advocacy Is Supposed to Be Inconvenient

Effective advocates can be irritating.

They ask questions.

They want explanations.

They ask for numbers.

They want to know why eligibility ends at a certain age, why a particular population was excluded, why one agency cannot share information with another, why a regulation has not been updated, or why the funding mechanism hurts the very community a bill claims to help.

Those questions can make people uncomfortable.

Good.

Comfort is not the purpose of advocacy.

The purpose is improvement.

If every meeting ends with everyone agreeing that everything is working perfectly, either you have discovered the most successful government program in human history or somebody is not asking enough questions.

I know which one I would bet on.

Sometimes the System Is the Problem

We often place enormous responsibility on individuals to navigate complicated systems.

Fill out the correct form.

Call the right office.

Meet the deadline.

Provide the documentation.

Know which agency has jurisdiction.

Understand the difference between federal, state, county, nonprofit, military, and VA programs.

And when someone falls through the cracks, we sometimes treat it as though they failed to navigate the system correctly.

But if thousands of people struggle with the same process, perhaps the people are not the problem.

Perhaps the process is.

A system should not require an unofficial graduate degree in bureaucracy to access the services it was created to provide.

“There’s Nothing We Can Do”

That is another phrase advocates hear frequently.

Sometimes it is true.

An agency may be bound by statute.

A local official may not have jurisdiction.

A nonprofit may not have funding.

A government employee may genuinely lack authority.

But “I cannot change this” and “this cannot be changed” are very different statements.

If the agency cannot fix it, perhaps Congress can.

If Congress cannot fix it, perhaps the state legislature can.

If the law is fine but the regulation is broken, perhaps the agency can revise the regulation.

If the program works but nobody knows about it, perhaps the problem is outreach.

If funding is the problem, then say funding is the problem.

The first step in reform is identifying where the actual authority lives.

“That’s just how it works” tells us nothing.

Ask the Next Question

One of the most useful habits in advocacy is refusing to stop at the first answer.

Why?

Who decided that?

What law requires it?

What regulation implements it?

When was it last reviewed?

What would it take to change?

Has anyone tried?

What happened?

Those questions are where policy work actually begins.

Sometimes you discover that a rule exists for an excellent reason.

Fine.

Then explain the reason.

Sometimes you discover that changing it would create a worse problem.

Fine.

Then explain the tradeoff.

But sometimes you discover something much more interesting:

Nobody knows why it works that way.

That is usually where I start paying attention.

Progress Begins With Someone Being Annoying Enough to Ask

Almost every major reform began with someone refusing to accept the existing answer.

Why can't women do this?

Why can't veterans receive that?

Why are surviving spouses treated differently?

Why does this benefit disappear?

Why is this form required?

Why are these programs not connected?

Why are we funding it this way?

Why are people falling through this gap?

Someone eventually asks the question enough times that the system has to answer.

And sometimes the answer is:

There really isn't a good reason.

That is how change begins.

Final Thought

“That’s just how it works” should never be the end of a policy conversation.

It may describe the current system.

It may explain the current procedure.

But it does not tell us whether the system is fair, efficient, effective, or still necessary.

Advocacy begins where that sentence ends.

When someone tells me:

“That’s just how it works.”

My response is simple:

“Okay. Why?”

And if nobody can give me a good answer, then perhaps we have found something worth changing.