A coordination failure happens when there exists a better outcome that everyone would prefer, but no one can move to it alone, so society stays stuck in a worse system. In this episode of Future IQ, we break down what coordination failure really means and why it shows up everywhere around us.Using real world examples like traffic chaos, the 70 hour work week, education rankings, medical appointments, scientific research, corruption, and insurance driven healthcare, we show how rational people responding to incentives unintentionally create outcomes that are worse for everyone. We connect these patterns to ideas like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, multipolar traps, the Tragedy of the Commons, and Goodhart’s Law.The episode also explores why coordination failures are so hard to fix, how they slowly emerge without being designed, and why simply “being a good person” is not enough. Finally, we discuss when coordination does work—vaccinations, ozone protection, functioning governments and the four ingredients required to make coordination possible, along with the danger of coordinating for the wrong goal.If you’ve ever wondered why everyone agrees something is broken but nothing changes, this episode gives you the mental model you’ve been missing.