The Layer Mismatch Problem: Why Correct Methods Produce Wrong Results

A method can be applied correctly — following its prescribed process, by a competent practitioner, to a genuine problem — and still fail to move the situation. This note examines a specific and underdiagnosed cause of this failure: the mismatch between the system level at which a problem lives and the system level at which the intervention operates. We call this the Layer Mismatch Problem. We argue that layer mismatch is not a failure of execution but a structural error of positioning, that it produces predictable failure patterns depending on the direction of the mismatch, and that diagnosing it requires a coordinate system that most methodological frameworks do not provide.