The Five Signs
The model identifies five signs that show how close someone is to their own consequence horizon. This page explains each one in detail: what it looks like, how to spot it, and what it tells you about the distance to the horizon.
1. Behavioural lag
How long they delay after spotting a problem.
Behavioural lag is the gap between knowing something and doing something about it. Everyone has some lag. That is normal. What matters is how long the gap is and whether it is growing.
A short lag means the person spots a problem and acts within a reasonable window. A long lag means the problem sits there, known but untouched, sometimes for months or years. The longer the lag, the further the person is from their horizon.
What it looks like in practice
- Someone who knows they need to deal with a tax issue but keeps pushing it to next month
- A manager who has identified an underperforming team member but has not had the conversation
- An organisation that has flagged a compliance gap in three consecutive audits without resolving it
What it tells you
Long behavioural lag does not mean the person is lazy or incompetent. It means the consequence has not yet crossed from abstract to personal. The lag is a measure of psychological distance, not capability. Once the horizon arrives, lag collapses almost instantly. The same person who delayed for a year will act in an afternoon.
2. Narrative
How strong the story is that lets them ignore it.
Everyone builds stories to protect themselves from uncomfortable truths. This is normal human behaviour. Cognitive dissonance theory explains why. The question is how elaborate the story has become and how much work it is doing.
A weak narrative is something like "I should probably look at that." A strong narrative is a fully constructed explanation for why action is not needed. "The market will recover." "They would have contacted me if it was serious." "Other companies have the same issue and nothing has happened to them." The stronger the narrative, the more the person needs it, and the more risk they are likely carrying.
What it looks like in practice
- Detailed justifications for inaction that sound reasonable on the surface but do not hold up under pressure
- Comparisons to others who are doing the same thing, used as evidence that the risk is acceptable
- A shift from "I know I need to deal with this" to "actually there is no real problem here"
What it tells you
The narrative is the load-bearing wall of the drift zone. When the story collapses, action follows quickly. If someone is defending their position with a detailed and well-rehearsed explanation, they are deep in the drift. If they are starting to question their own story, the horizon is getting closer.
3. Incentive sensitivity
How much pressure is needed before they act.
Some people act when the first warning arrives. Others need a letter. Others need a legal notice. Others need someone standing at their door. Incentive sensitivity is about where the threshold sits.
A person with low incentive sensitivity needs a large amount of pressure before they move. The gentle nudge does nothing. The formal warning does nothing. Only the real, visible, immediate consequence gets through. A person with high incentive sensitivity responds to early signals and acts before the situation escalates.
What it looks like in practice
- Someone who ignores reminder letters but responds immediately to a phone call from the right person
- A board that ignores internal risk reports but reacts instantly to a regulator inquiry
- A person who will not change a habit until a doctor uses the word that makes it real
What it tells you
Low incentive sensitivity is not defiance. It is distance. The person is not refusing to act. The signal is not strong enough to penetrate the drift. Understanding someone's incentive sensitivity helps you predict what kind of event will actually move them. For some people it is information. For others it is authority. For others it is embarrassment. For many it is personal impact.
4. Information filtering
What they avoid or minimise.
People in the drift zone do not just ignore problems. They actively manage what information they take in. They read the headline but not the report. They attend the meeting but zone out during the difficult part. They ask for updates but do not read them. This is motivated reasoning at work.
The filtering is not always conscious. Often it happens automatically. The brain protects the current story by screening out anything that would force a revision. The result is that the person feels informed while actually being blind to the most important signals.
What it looks like in practice
- Selectively quoting data that supports the current course and dismissing data that contradicts it
- Avoiding conversations with people who are likely to challenge the narrative
- Asking for advice but only from people who will agree
- Opening the email but not reading the attachment
What it tells you
Heavy information filtering is a strong signal that someone is deep in the drift zone and carrying significant risk. The filter is doing the work that should be done by action. When the filter starts to fail, when the person begins to let uncomfortable information through, it usually means the horizon is close. The narrative can only block reality for so long.
5. Crisis threshold
The point where they finally accept the situation and change course.
The crisis threshold is the line itself. It is the moment where the person accepts that the situation is real, that it applies to them, and that action is no longer optional. Everything before this point is preparation. Everything after it is movement.
The threshold is different for everyone. For some people it is a number. For some it is an event. For some it is a feeling. For some it is someone else's crisis that makes their own feel possible. There is no universal trigger. But there is a universal pattern: once the threshold is crossed, the person moves quickly and the previous delay becomes hard to understand even to themselves.
What it looks like in practice
- A sudden shift in language from "it will be fine" to "we need to deal with this now"
- Rapid decision-making after a long period of indecision
- Willingness to accept costs or losses that were previously unthinkable
- Dropping the protective narrative entirely and speaking plainly about the situation
What it tells you
The crisis threshold is not something you can control in someone else. But you can learn to read how close they are to it. When the narrative weakens, when the information filters start to fail, when the behavioural lag shortens, when less pressure is needed to get a response, the threshold is approaching. Recognising these shifts early is the practical value of the model.
Using the five signs together
No single sign is enough on its own. People can have a long behavioural lag but a weak narrative, which means they are likely to act with a small push. Others can have a strong narrative and heavy filtering but low incentive sensitivity, which means they are deeply entrenched and far from the horizon.
The value is in reading them together. When several signs start to shift at once, the horizon is close. When all five are holding steady, the person is deep in the drift zone and unlikely to act without a significant event.
If you want to reflect on where you sit personally, the self-assessment page offers a structured way to think through it. For real-world examples of the five signs in action, see the case studies.
Morgan Sheldon (2025)