Reset Mode – Existential Re-Evaluation

Reset Mode is the renovator stance of HCS.

Where Stabilization Mode repairs, Growth Mode extends, and Conflict Mode makes tension visible, Reset Mode asks:

“Given what has changed and what we’ve learned,
does this cooperation system still make sense in its current form – and if not, what needs to end or be rebuilt?”

It focuses on acknowledging that the old contract is no longer valid and designing the conditions for a different future – whether together or apart.

Reset Mode is not an admission of failure.
It is a recognition that context, purpose, or legitimacy have moved on, and the system must either transform or be consciously closed.

When Reset Mode Is Active

You are in Reset Mode when:

• The original basis of cooperation has fundamentally changed:
• Strategy, market, or funding shifts make previous goals obsolete.
• Key stakeholders, sponsors, or decision-makers have changed.

• The intended value is no longer relevant or worth the cost.

• Or, the relationship itself is no longer workable:

• Repeated Stabilization and Conflict efforts have not led to sustainable improvement.
• Parties remain technically cooperative but are emotionally or politically disengaged.
• People privately agree: “If we were starting today, we wouldn’t design it like this.”

Typical entry signals:

• Long-running projects or partnerships that feel “too big to stop” but no longer make sense.
• Initiatives continued out of habit, sunk cost, or fear of political consequences.
• A sense of stagnation, cynicism, or quiet exit (people leaving, disengaging, or “ghosting” the work).

If the core purpose is still valid and trust is repairable, you may be in Stabilization or Conflict rather than Reset.
Reset Mode is appropriate when continuing “as is” is the more dangerous option.

Core Objectives of Reset Mode

Reset Mode has three main objectives:

1. Face Reality About the Current System
2. Name clearly:
   • what has changed in context and purpose,
   • what is no longer true or legitimate,
   • what damage or fatigue has accumulated.

3. Stop pretending the old system is still appropriate.

4. Decide What Ends, What Continues, and What Transforms

5. Clarify:
   • which agreements, roles, and structures should be ended,
   • which parts still have value and can be preserved,
   • what needs to be redesigned from first principles.

6. Avoid “zombie cooperation” – arrangements that exist on paper but not in reality.

7. Create Conditions for a Clean Start (or Clean Closure)

8. If cooperation should continue in a different form:
   • define a clear path back to Setup Mode.
9. If cooperation should end:
   • close it with clarity and respect, avoiding unnecessary harm and ambiguity.

Reset Mode is about integrity: aligning the cooperation system with what is actually true now.

Core Model Focus in Reset Mode

Reset Mode primarily revisits Level 1 and Level 2 of the Pyramid, with deliberate decisions about what happens to Levels 3–5.

• Level 1 – Preconditions for Cooperation
• The central questions:
  • Is there still a shared, legitimate purpose for this cooperation?
  • Is the interdependence still real, or has it become forced or symbolic?
  • Can we still meaningfully communicate as partners?
  • Is there enough trust to justify continued cooperation?
  • Has the change/uncertainty landscape shifted so much that old assumptions are invalid?

If the answer to these is mostly “no”, remaining in the existing system is often worse than resetting.

• Level 2 – Core Human Needs for Cooperative Work

• In Reset Mode, you examine:

  • whether Shared Understanding is possible or constantly dissolves,
  • whether Mutual Commitment is genuinely reciprocal or deeply unbalanced,
  • whether Feedback Loops are functional or systematically ignored,
  • whether Distribution of Roles remains legitimate,
  • whether any real Autonomy & Agency is left on both sides.

• Levels 3–5 – Functions, Practices, Meta-Practices

• Reset Mode does not try to optimize these.
• It asks which functions and practices:
  • should be retired with the system,
  • can be salvaged and reused elsewhere,
  • reveal insights that should inform future Setup and Stabilization.

The Level Rule is invoked here in its strongest form:
if Level 1 is fundamentally broken, working harder on Levels 3–4 is a way of avoiding reality.

Extended Dynamics in Reset Mode

Reset Mode operates in a landscape of strong Extended Conditions and Extended Needs, often accumulated over time.

Typical Extended Conditions:

• Contextual
• Market shifts, mergers, reorganizations, funding cuts, regulatory changes.

• New strategic priorities that make the old cooperation peripheral or obstructive.

• Relational

• History of unresolved conflicts, broken commitments, or repeated disappointments.

• Loss of goodwill, even if people remain “professional”.

• Structural

• Power shifts: who can exit, who is locked in, who decides to end or renew the contract.

• Misaligned incentives that reward continuation even when it makes no sense.

• Developmental

• The system has reached the end of a natural lifecycle.
• Attempts to “revive” it feel more like resuscitating something that wants to end.

Typical Extended Needs in focus:

• Purpose & Direction
• People need clarity about why any continuation or termination is happening.

• They need to see that decisions match stated values.

• Trust & Safety

• People want to know they will not be punished for acknowledging reality.

• They need assurances about how changes will affect them.

• Recognition & Belonging

• There is a need to honor contributions and effort, even if the outcome is closure.
• Individuals and teams may fear loss of identity or status tied to the existing system.

Reset Mode treats these needs as central, not peripheral, to ending or transforming cooperation responsibly.

What to Prioritize in Reset Mode

Prioritize:

• Telling the truth about viability
• Clearly state when the existing cooperation no longer serves its intended purpose.

• Share assessments and constraints transparently with key stakeholders.

• Honoring what has been invested

• Acknowledge the work, learning, and relationships built.

• Distinguish between failed outcomes and valuable efforts.

• Designing a deliberate ending or restart

• Define:

  • what exactly stops and when,
  • what transitions to a different form,
  • what must be kept running temporarily to avoid harm.

• Protecting people during transition

• Consider psychological and political impact:

  • How will people be informed?
  • Who might feel blamed or abandoned?
  • How can you avoid unnecessary stigma or shame?

• Capturing learning for future Setup and Stabilization

• Document key insights:
  • what worked,
  • what failed,
  • what assumptions proved wrong.
• Feed this back into Setup Mode for any new cooperation that follows.

What to Avoid in Reset Mode

Avoid:

• Silent decay

• Letting the system die informally without explicit decisions, leaving people confused and stuck in limbo.

• Sunk-cost insistence

• Continuing cooperation purely because “we’ve already invested so much”.

• Cosmetic rebranding

• Renaming or relabeling the system without changing purpose, structure, or relationships.

• Scapegoating

• Blaming individuals or one party for a situation driven by context shifts or joint design choices.

• Rushing into a new Setup without integration

• Jumping straight into a new cooperation design without integrating what the old one taught you.

Reset Mode is about clean decisions, not cosmetic change.

Mode Transitions

Typical transitions into Reset Mode:

• From Growth Mode, when expansion runs into strategic or contextual walls that cannot be worked around.
• From Conflict Mode, when attempts at repair reveal that continued cooperation would be harmful or pointless.
• From Stabilization Mode, when repeated attempts to stabilize fail because the underlying purpose or context has fundamentally shifted.

Typical transitions out of Reset Mode:

• Into Setup Mode, when a new or radically redesigned cooperation is justified.
• Into no cooperation, when the best option is to stop working together in this domain.
• Into limited, re-scoped cooperation, with much narrower boundaries and expectations.

Unhealthy patterns:

• Treating Reset as a purely technical or contractual event, ignoring emotional and relational impact.
• Cycling between Growth and Stabilization to avoid acknowledging the need for Reset.
• Treating Reset as a “failure to hide”, instead of a necessary adaptation to reality.

Summary

Reset Mode allows a cooperation system to end or transform with integrity.

It does not guarantee that everyone will be happy with the outcome.
Its role is to ensure that:

• the decision to continue, transform, or end cooperation is based on current reality, not past intent,
• foundational conditions (purpose, interdependence, trust) are not faked or assumed,
• people are not trapped in obsolete or harmful arrangements out of habit or fear,
• valuable learning and relationships are carried forward consciously,
• any new cooperation starts from Setup Mode, not from the unspoken debris of the old system.

Used well, Reset Mode prevents organizations and teams from living in “zombie cooperation” –
freeing energy and attention for systems that are genuinely alive, needed, and possible.