#scale

Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, decribes a poll of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies and industries. He reports the poll's findings: * Only 37 percent said they have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to achieve and why * Only one in five was enthusiastic about their team's and their organization's goals * Only one in five said they had a clear "line of sight" between their tasks and their team's and organization's goals * Only 15 percent felt that their organization fully enables them to execute key goals * Only 20 percent fully trusted the organization they work for Then, Covey superimposes a very human metaphor over the statistics. He says, "If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only 4 of the 11 players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only 2 of the 11 would care. Only 2 of the 11 would know what position they play and know exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but 2 players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent. ↗

— Chip Heath

#human-scale #simplicity #communication

All space is relative. There is no such thing as size. The telescope and the microscope have produced a deadly leveling of great and small, far and near. The only little thing is sin, the only great thing is fear! ("The Jelly-Fish") ↗

— David H. Keller

#fear #relativity #scale #science #size

The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed in the same scales. ↗

— Aesop

#same #scales #seldom #suffer #those

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#essence #improbability #life #scale #statistical

Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering. ↗

— Aeschylus

#justice #learning #scale #some #suffering

It is true I had been successful on a small scale in overcoming one of the main difficulties in the new process, but there was still much to invent, and much that at that period I necessarily knew nothing about. ↗

— Henry Bessemer

#been #difficulties #had #i #invent

On the Internet, companies are scale businesses, characterized by high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs. You can be two sizes: You can be big, or you can be small. It's very hard to be medium. A lot of medium-sized companies had the financing rug pulled out from under them before they could get big. ↗

— Jeff Bezos

#big #businesses #characterized #companies #costs

It is no wonder that bank capital is regulated. When borrowing and lending is profitable, it is tempting for banks to scale up their operations and to borrow and lend too much in relation to their capital, in effect reducing the effectiveness of the potential capital cushion. ↗

— Evan Davis

#banks #borrow #borrowing #capital #cushion

Meanwhile, hard-working Americans are increasingly faced with workplace conditions in which critically important safeguards are watered down, emerging problems are ignored, and enforcement is scaled back. ↗

— Tim Bishop

#conditions #critically #down #emerging #enforcement

Economies of scale are a good thing. If we didn't have them, we'd still be living in tents and eating buffalo. ↗

— Jamie Dimon

#buffalo #eating #economies #good #good thing