In Stage 4, each grasp for salvation creates a burst of hope and momentary momentum. But if there’s no underlying flywheel, the momentum doesn’t last. And with each grasp, the enterprise erodes capital—financial capital, cultural capital, stakeholder capital—and weakens. If the company never gets back to the discipline of the flywheel, it will likely continue to spiral downward until it enters Stage 5. No enterprise comes back from Stage 5. Game over.
