Fire investigators distinguish the initial source of the fire, and accelerants which made the fire worse.
People blame many things for our social struggles: glut data and information, social media amplifying narratives, poverty, unequal opportunities for education and jobs, drugs, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and obesity, identity confusion. (Surely I’ve missed some.) These aren’t root causes, they’re accelerants.
You can also distinguish core strengths, and force multipliers. A great product or service is a core strength; the sales system and customer service are force multipliers. Employee resilience and capacity to learn are force multipliers, as are alliances in your supply chain. Neighbors caring for neighbors might be a core strength of a community, but certainly neighbors who are alert to events and threats is a force multiplier.
Truly great products don’t need accelerants to succeed. It’s often easier to add accelerants and force multipliers to a weak product than to build a great product from scratch. Smart leaders should be thinking about everything together to shape superior systems of systems.
