I often now turn to the experience of living vulnerably on a warped plain.

At the start, as the ball Is rolling down the warped plane it encounters the first warp (a ridge with two adjacent valleys). At this point, it tends to oscillate. Bifurcation tends to be preceded by oscillations. At the point the ball ceases to oscillate and begins to move down one of the adjacent valleys, an irreversible decision has occurred.
When the ball begins to move down one of the valleys, however, it usually doesn’t move directly down the center of the valley. Rather, because it entered the valley from an angle (having oscillated among several options before entering the valley), it rolls up the side of one of the valley’s ridges. The ball then corrects itself by rolling back across the floor of the valley and up the other ridge of the valley—while continuing to roll down the valley.
In this setting, an organization makes orderly changes and operates in a self-correcting fashion. The organization is moving toward a specific goal (the bottom of the valley) and its leaders usually can rather clearly articulate the skills, knowledge and attitudes that are needed among the men and women who are working in the organization. The ball or organization may not yet be done with the change process.
At times, the ball may swing too far and actually roll up over the top of the ridge into the adjacent valley. Changes in the first valley have become too great —usually as a function of the speed of the ball’s movement (the faster the speed, the wider the swings). As in the case of the initial oscillations that preceded the ball’s movement into the first valley, the movement into a second valley is preceded by oscillations—though in this case the oscillations are usually very large and quite public.