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Leading indicators are not always
the closest to the event... At least the one's we want to
watch. Some take years and even decades to unfold. This
frustrates many people because when they think of a leading
indicator they want something like a wristwatch, or a
speedometer, so they can quickly see and know. That is not
how systems really work at the structural level.
I will provide an example of leading indicators, but first
note that has taken decades to "fill up its bathtub" and still
filling. Soon, the runoff will take SIGNIFICANT effort
to clean up, and that is the thing with bathtubs...and hot
tubs. One time I put my hot tub in my office and left the
water running, it filled up the basement!
Just a slow trickle at the start, only a few involved.
However, we forgot it was left on. Not much noise, just
water everywhere. It all looked ok, until the water started
rising out of the basement... Not a good sign. That is what
people think are leading indicators, the water that ran out of
the bathtub, that filled up the basement and is now running on
the street...
What was going into the bathtub was really the leading
indicator, and what you think are leading indicators is the
noise they make, the flood.
Once the flood comes, you have significant damage and cleanup
efforts, it's better to know what's going into the tub!
Here is the example: [Probably shouldn't use such a political
example, because Obama just happens to be at the wheel. This
has been going on long before he was born, wherever that was.
<G>]
Americans' dependence on federal
government assistance increased 23% in two years under Obama
(the biggest two-year increase since Jimmy Carter was in
office)… 67 million Americans now rely on some federal aid,
according to a new study by conservative think tank Heritage
Foundation.
Heritage's annual Index of Dependence on Government tracks
money spent on housing, health care, welfare, education, and
other federal programs that were "traditionally provided to
needy people by local organizations and families."
The report shows spending on "dependence programs" accounts
for more than 70% of the federal budget. In 1990, that number
was only 48.5%. Meanwhile, fewer Americans pay income taxes…
49.5% didn't pay any income taxes in 2009 (the most recent
data). In the 1960s, that number was only 12%.
There are reasons why this is
happening and it’s a slow trickle, but the bathtub is filling
Some might say it was full a while back and it's now running
into the basement... I suspect in the example that is true,
because the amount of ITEAM, it's going to take to
resolve this is now generational.
You can't expect things that took
decades to happen, to be fixable overnight, and that is why
you want leading indicators.
HOWEVER, there is one issue with
leading indicators, they require an ego check...because the
reason most leading indicators don't work is that we are
subject to them, and don't have an object relationship.
We figure since it's not affecting us directly, it's someone
else's problem --> and our ego error!
Leading indicators are key elements
of trying to understand how systems function. What are the
bathtubs, what are the flows into those bathtubs and what
happens when something reaches an equilibrium that is not
going to be a good result; which means we get a positive
reinforcing loop, and the negative loops disappear; which
means that we get more of what we got...and in the example
above, I think you can see where that is going.
Who is going to be the first one to
take a stand...?
Or will anyone?
AND that (not supposed to start
sentences with propositions, ugh!) ...is why most people
don't really understand leading indicators, because they
happen so far ahead of the results, that you have time for
your egos to play pretending games about what is actually
happening. People and media prefer the noise of the basement
filing up with water and running into the street. It makes it
easy to report and understand, and even fix, in our "wait
until it breaks society".
The artifacts show that we have
passed out of the blue meme and we have left the center of
gravity in the USA of blue, or DQ (remember Dairy Queen), as
the wholesome and sweet reminder of those chocolate-dipped
cones <yummy>; which is sad, except to all those who realize
that with this basin at critical levels of density, what it
leaves us with are a lot of bathtubs that are going to run
over...welcome to leading indicators and the pretense of ego.
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