Comment by Nevermark

Diagram 5 can be improved.

[Time Spent on Improvement] is shown having a negative impact on [Time Spent Working].

But [Time Spent Working] should also have a negative impact going back to [Time Spent on Improvement].

This simple mutually negative feedback loop, i.e. a competitive relationship, better explains the bistable situation where either [Time Spent Working] reinforces itself, while holding [Time Spent on Improvement] down, or vice versa.

Feedback loops reinforce themselves, but there is only so much time, so there will be a strong tendency for one feedback loops to dominate the time. (And since the Time Spent Working -> Reduce Performance Gap loop operates much faster, cheaper in the short run, and is much easier to reason about and manage, it usually wins.)