Adaptive work generates disequilibrium, and the leader's task is to keep it within the productive zone of disequilibrium: enough heat to win attention and engagement and keep things moving, while stopping short of the point where the organization, or the leader's part of it, blows apart. Below the zone people are comfortable and the problem is avoided; above it tensions reach disabling proportions. A technical problem's distress peaks and then falls as the fix is applied; an adaptive challenge starts with low distress that must be raised until the discomfort of leaving the problem alone matches the discomfort of dealing with it, then rises and falls non-linearly with several possible outcomes. The leader anticipates and counters work avoidance, the tactics that lower the heat to comfortable levels (a committee with no authority, a scapegoat, an externalized enemy, a big man to fix it, killing the messenger, redefining the problem to fit current competence, side issues), and needs a plan with freedom to deviate from it.
The graph holds this control, the 0 it maps to, and the evidence behind each claim, over MCP and REST.