Most growing pains start quietly. A decision keeps circling back, a mistake gets protected, a workaround becomes normal, or the person with the answer stays too far from the work.
Signal gives you a first rep. It points to the part of the system using the most energy, then gives you a cleaner place to start.
Used as a comparison point. The useful part is still the pattern inside your own system.
Lower scores mean the work can still move. Higher scores mean the current structure is charging a toll.
Signal reaches action without much ceremony.
Some things move. Some things keep returning to the old shape.
The system is spending energy defending its current form.
How far a signal has to travel before someone can act on it.
Whether the system can admit a wrong turn before it becomes identity.
Where the real operating knowledge lives, and who can reach it.
How quickly reality moves from the edge of the work to the people making calls.
Whether strong people can move toward the hardest problems.
The habits, contracts, tools, and meetings keeping the old shape alive.
How much yesterday's spending controls today's choices.
Answer from how the business actually works, not how the process says it works.