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Knowing If It's Working

The hardest part of building organizational return capacity is distinguishing between activity and capacity.

What This Page Helps You Do​

Use this page when the organization is doing visible return-related work, but you need to know whether that work is actually improving comeback speed.

Signs That It Is Working​

Return capacity is likely improving when:

  • drift is noticed earlier
  • naming is more frequent and more honest
  • the decision to return happens with less delay
  • gap-closing becomes smaller and more frequent
  • the practice starts becoming self-sustaining

The strongest signal is usually not more activity. It is cheaper return.

Signs That It Is Not​

It is probably not working when:

  • vocabulary is present but behavior is unchanged
  • returns happen in the meeting and unravel afterward
  • feedback is gathered but not acted on
  • programs increase but comeback speed does not
  • people who name drift are still penalized

The Honest Read​

Ask every six months:

Is the organization getting faster and more reliable at coming back to what it is for?

Not in every single case. But as a real trend: is the loop getting cheaper, or more expensive?

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