operating in a less glamorous or aggressive way, focused on fundamentals and aiming at steady, methodical progress instead of flashier goals, as in “I know this new sales strategy sounds like small ball, but that’s how we win in the cloud software space”; the concept derives from the so-named strategy in the sport of baseball, in which a team seeks to win by grinding out runs through careful batting and patience rather than riskier extra base hits; also used in basketball, where the traditionally desirable tall and powerful lineup is replaced with speedier perimeter players who have greater ability to shoot from across the court, leading to fewer thunderous, crowd-pleasing slam dunks but more routine, efficient scoring

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to use a purportedly neutral moderation role to deftly steer a process to some desired outcome, thus combining facilitation with manipulation, as in “That was some masterful facipulation in the strategy workshop, he knew exactly where the brainstorming would end up”; the clunky nature of this mashed-up term means its usage is always tinged with humor; the line between such behavior and skillfully guiding a free-flowing conversation to a productive outcome is not always obvious, so characterizing another’s actions in this way may depend on how far the result diverged from one’s own inclinations

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Great circle route

The next time you travel by airplane, look out the window and see if you can count how many engines are attached to the wings. Chances are pretty good you will find only one on each side. This holds true even on routes with long stretches over water or harsh terrain that provide no suitable diversion sites in case of mechanical trouble.

With few exceptions, most jets in commercial service now come fitted with two engines, a notable change from the status quo in the middle of the 20^th century. In those earlier days of air travel the norm was to have four, and not because they provided the optimal ratio of power or efficiency. The main reason for this redundancy was the perceived unreliability of existing engines.

If there were only two to begin with, a blown piston or other mishap would leave just a single engine operating, a prospect too risky for regulators. This led manufacturers and their airline customers to converge on four engines as the standard. (For obvious reasons of symmetrical thrust an odd number wasn’t a popular choice, although some models featured a third engine embedded in the tail.)

What’s more, regulatory bodies like the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. mandated that aircraft couldn’t stray too far from possible landing sites, in case of emergencies requiring immediate help from the ground. This meant routes were carefully plotted not to take the shortest distance between origin and destination but to stay within range of potential diversion airports throughout the flight.1

Planes with four engines were given more leeway in how far they could be from emergency landing sites as multiple simultaneous breakdowns were improbable, so for the longest trips they were still king. Such policies enhanced safety but came at a price, as each deviation from the ideal path used up time and fuel. In certain cases this incremental cost of the rules made service between city pairs economically unviable.

With the advent of simpler and highly reliable jet turbines, regulators began relaxing the restrictions on how closely aircraft needed to remain to possible landing sites mid-route. Under the rubric of “ETOPS”, standing for Extended Operations,2 operators were able to prove through rigorous safety certification that in-flight failure was unlikely, and manageable should it occur, so tight constraints were not needed.

An original rule requiring planes to be within 60 minutes of an airport was relaxed, first to 90 minutes, then two or even three hours, until today there are some craft certified to fly over six hours away from any runway. The implications sound extreme at first—passengers on such planes trust they can remain airborne for six hours in the event of a technical problem that can’t be solved while in the skies.

Fortunately, these modified regulations have been standardized globally and steadily expanded without incident. Planes today are designed to be perfectly airworthy if all but one of their engines fail, and such issues are exceedingly rare.3 The prior approach has been discarded as unnecessarily conservative.

This is a valuable change for travelers who now have direct options between locations that would not be profitable for airlines to service were the more cautious routings still required. Airlines save on fuel, and with fewer expensive and complicated engines to service they have lower capital and maintenance costs. Manufacturers have in turn designed massive new powerplants that operate with record-breaking efficiency. New planes from Boeing and Airbus have globe-spanning reach and take for granted that extreme redundancy won’t be required.

Known unknowns

Policies like ETOPS might seem foolhardy—after all, why not add extra safety requirements just in case the worst happens? If they were costless that wouldn’t be a problem, but in the real world of aviation more backup adds more weight and drag. Circuitous routings cost time and fuel, which can be calculated with precision. Even still, these known costs may be preferred over the unknown cost of an emergency, since ambiguity is unsettling.

This reflects a broader psychological phenomenon known as risk aversion, which has been well-attested in the social sciences. Humans prefer to avoid losses and will incur real costs to mitigate them, even if these costs are greater than the expected loss. This effect works at the level of organizations, or even more complex systems like aviation regulation.4

When evaluating the merits of a new path the downsides can be obvious, since what you have to lose is generally clearer than what you have to gain. For instance, if a company launches a new product it may risk cannibalizing its existing profitable ones. The status quo will have managers who are quick to point out that fact, and those whose performance evaluations are contingent on it will provide especially sharp calculations of the risks of change. That consideration can overwhelm the fact that their market share is already under pressure and competitors are circling with their own offerings.

Building in every possible contingency as part of a strategy can end up producing something so encrusted with extraneous elements that agility is compromised. Alternatively, it may hew so closely to known and safe paths that it ends up losing the novelty that would make it compelling. If you can’t cut yourself loose from a certain strategy or mental model, your degrees of freedom become limited. In the process new paths are closed off, even though they might unlock a different way of operating. Sometimes caution is a crutch whose real costs are not adequately calculated. A better path might involve getting rid of the safety net.

When faced with ambiguity too often we choose the guaranteed loss, which might be greater than the as-yet unknown costs of taking the riskier path. The safe route may be comfortable, but it is costly.

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to raise concerns in dramatic fashion in hopes of averting significant negative outcomes, as in “Our donor metrics have all been trending down for the past four quarters and management just isn’t getting it, we need to pull the fire alarm”; refers to actions or communications that will quickly get attention, especially that of one’s superiors or other decision-makers; doing so may include a desire to mitigate personal fallout by calling attention to problems before they have fully actualized, deflecting responsibility when things blow up; a milder variant is raise your hand, which suggests the decorousness of a student politely attracting the teacher’s regard without creating a ruckus; as with the literal example underpinning this phrase, it is always preferable to sound the alarm early, before the fire leaves only smoldering ruins

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a high-level estimate intended to be a reasonable approximation upon which decisions or further work can be based, drawing on the notion that a grenade need only be in the vicinity of its intended target to be effective, given its blast radius; this jargon has playful, martial undertones and is likely to be heard when rapidly grasping the quantitative contours of the situation is more important than precision; similar to t-shirt sizing, a similar concept used for rough categorization; the folk saying “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades” has the opposite sense, and is said when an exact target must be reached for an achievement to be meaningful; see also crayon analysis

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a condition in which modifications remain possible, as with cement that has yet to fully harden; used to indicate flexibility or the opportunity to provide substantial input, as in “We can still change the report structure if we need to, the outline is wet cement”; can presumably be modified to “hard cement” when such changes are no longer feasible; has the opposite sense of baked or crisp, which reference work that has been satisfactorily finalized; see also cement is dry

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Fit to print

In the early twentieth century Americans seeking the news had plenty of print sources to choose from, many of which were local papers. Even smallish towns had markets deep enough to support multiple publications, each jockeying to make their presence known in a bustling marketplace. Beyond the daily news cycle there was demand for a more reflective, comprehensive perspective. This space was filled by magazines that bypassed regional reporting in favor of issues with national significance.

These titles curated articles across a wide range of topics, assembling them into issues with broad appeal. Among this group Time and Newsweek would become two of the most prominent, launching around the same time and reaching similar audiences.1 Their solidly middle-market voices helped them grow steadily in circulation, able to attract urbanites on the coasts as well as those in the heartland.

The cover of Time would become particularly desirable real estate. Attaining it meant that a topic or personality had a sufficient level of importance for the entire country to merit being framed by its iconic red border. In the quest for circulation numbers Newsweek was in a strong second place, with a personality that was largely indistinguishable from Time’s, understandable given the need to draw in the widest set of potential readers. Read more…

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(verb) a folksy colloquialism that suggests the ability to perform as desired, accomplish some objective, or generally succeed, as in: “I’m not sure that product line extension will hunt, millennials are looking for something more authentic”; usually deployed to indicate that something will not achieve the hoped-for purpose; truncated from the longer expression “that dog won’t hunt”, which refers to an animal that is not useful for pack hunting due to age, temperament, or lack of training, with the implication that relying on it will lead to disappointment in the middle of the chase; due to its rural origins this jargon may not be regularly used or understood in urban professional contexts

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an area of particular talent, effectiveness, or competence, as in “Our pop-up shops do really well in the Far East, that’s always been our sweet spot”; conveys the sense of identifying the best within a broad range of options or an ideal confluence of circumstances; used in sports that involve striking a ball, where the phrase indicates the place on the bat or racquet that generates the most powerful hit; similar to wheelhouse, which denotes a role in which one is highly capable

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Sleep tight

The choice of a mattress is fraught with implications, given how much of life is spent asleep and the infrequency of their purchase, not to mention the high price tag. Manufacturers are keenly aware of this and do their best to stoke the wallet-opening concerns of customers, using florid language to highlight coil counts or the latest in cushioning technology. Models receive names that evoke cruise ships or luxury sedans or vaguely European locales, and are further tagged with inscrutable indicators somehow related to quality.

Buyers are at a natural disadvantage as the innards of the product are invisible, leaving them to trust that the features advertised are present in the product and actually meaningful.1 Mattresses are difficult to transport and even harder to return, so the category does not lend itself to comparison shopping.

Behind the scenes, manufacturers have quietly consolidated and gained scale, rolling up the industry into a handful of mega-players, each with numerous offerings across the price spectrum. As the market matured these were increasingly sold in standalone shops dedicated solely to mattresses, featuring spartan décor, opaque pricing and a haggling experience not unlike that of a car dealership.

To top it off manufacturers adopted an especially cunning tactic to obscure costs and keep prices high. They created unique names for identical products and distributed them to exclusive sales outlets, ensuring that consumers would be unable to check prices at a competing store. Imagine if a Honda Accord was called by a different name at every dealership and you get the idea.2 Maximizing bewilderment and confusion led to a highly profitable business model for many years, such that mattress stores sprouted up across the United States, jammed into often marginal real estate. Read more…

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