Every system is a bowl on a pedestal.

The bowl is the self-righting zone: after perturbations the system will tend to roll back to equilibrium on its own.

The pedestal is the self-intensifying zone: after the perturbation pushes the system out of the bowl it tends to accelerate out of equilibrium at a self-accelerating rate.

The "height" of the pedestal is the rate the system will accelerate in this zone.

This is a tighter frame on an observation I made a few weeks ago.

When considering the system, ask yourself:

How deep is the bowl?

How high is the pedestal?

The deeper the bowl and lower the pedestal, the more robustly safe the system.