
![A line of parked brown UPS trucks](/images/articles/ups.webp)

# Introduction

Reading that headline on an article, I was amazed and piqued by how large corporations find the most obscure and mindboggling ways to save money. This curiousity took me through a great deal of reading and analysis to find such stories. Now I present to you my findings, based on my research on how corporations stay nimble and save their time, energy and likely a great deal of money!

What is 'good enough', really? 99% of targets met? 95%? Both sound like a win. But are they? Here's some food for thought...

Most major organisations run a hierarchy of about 11 ranks. Roughly from top down:

1. Chairman
1. CEO
1. CXO
1. Senior Vice President
1. Vice President
1. Senior Director
1. Director
1. Senior Manager
1. Manager
1. Senior Software Engineer
1. Software Engineer

Now picture the CEO with his vision for a product, travelling down the chain. At each handoff, the receiving manager - through miscommunication, time pressure, or simple willingness to compromise - deliver 99% of what was actually asked. Reasonable enough surely? Their own direct report does the same. And so does theirs, and theirs, all the way down to the engineer: the person who actually builds the thing. Ten handoffs. Each one losing just 1%. Here's what that compounds to:

0.99¹⁰ ≈ 0.90 - A product that's 90% of the original version.

Now push that 'acceptable' loss slightly higher. A 2% degradation per handoff, you get 0.98¹⁰ ≈ 0.82 - 82% of the vision. At 5%, you're down to 0.95¹⁰ ≈ 0.60 - just a little more than half of what was actually intended.

That's the real danger of 'good enough'. It was never really about any one person's number. It's what happens when an entire chain of command quietly agrees that 'close enough' is good enough.

Here are some ways through which corporations are bearing unnecessary expenses and loss of revenue:

# How Inefficiencies Cost Companies

## Miscommunication

Grammarly approximates that companies lose an approximate $9,284 per employee annually, and according to Talaera, that translates to a stunning $1.2 trillion each year among the US companies alone as a collective.

## Meetings, or collectively not working?

The Steven Rogelberg survey finds that large companies (5,000+ employees) lose around $101 million each year, and costing employees the equivalent of 26 working days per year in ineffective meetings.

## Disengagement

This is when a person, has showed up to the office but lacks the motivation, and has checked-out emotionally from their work. Gallup's 2026 State of Global Workplace found that only 20% of the employees worldwide are engaged; costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion every year.

This partly explains why startups and small companies can still compete with larger organisations even with meagre resources. An avalanche is just a million tiny snowflakes falling in the same direction.

Well, can organizations turn the tables? Here are some amazing stories of major corporations doing just that. These are stories I have come across through articles, magazines, and keynotes.

# What Can Corporations do to Improve Efficiency

## Cut Down on Inefficiencies

Companies like Amazon and Shopify drastically cut down on meetings internally. On January 3rd, 2023, Shopify abruptly removed all recurring meetings involving more than two people and instated a "no-meeting Wednesday" policy and limited large meetings (involving more than 50 people) to a six hour window on Thursdays. This removed a whopping 36 years worth of meeting time from calendars. Most notably none of these recurring meetings were recreated, suggesting they were never necessary in the first place. They also built a meeting cost calculator that estimates the cost to the company per meeting. Amazon follows the two-pizza rule where it instructs that every team ought to be small enough to be fed by two pizzas.

## Use Intelligent Algorithms

UPS found that their trucks lost most of their fuel waiting for the traffic signal. Through their Orion algorithm, they discovered that if their trucks were to take the free right turn following a slightly longer route, it would work wonders, as it did. It saved them 10 million gallons of fuel and $400 million a year in costs every year!

## Fix Expensive Problems Early

Toyota's Andon Cord - This is a rope that runs across the assembly line that any worker across any of the segments (not just supervisors) could pull to instantly stop the entire production line if they spotted a defect or abnormality. This may seem counter-intuitive because it hurts efficiency, but the cost of preventing potential problems is far lower than bearing the cost of solving failures down the line. The main caveat of this method is 'empowerment'. No employee is ever under any circumstance is punished for pulling the cord. In fact, they are thanked, even if the defect turned out to be nothing.


## Bypassing Chain of Command

Elon Musk instructed his employees to talk to whoever they need to talk to, in order to solve a problem, regardless of what department or rank they sit in.
Corporations could hold skip-level meetings where upper management cuts across levels and directly speaks with junior employees. This eliminates the compound effect that I spoke of earlier.

## Empower Employees

The Ritz-Carlton's $2,000 rule: The famed hotel chain authorises each of its employees - no exceptions - to spend up to $2,000 dollars per guest to solve a problem or to create a great experience; with no approval chain, permissions, or consequences. It eliminates the situation where employees may get stuck in when an angry customer wishes to escalate issues. All they can do is wait for the manager, not provide arbitrary generosity. They came up with the number by finding that an average guest spends approx. $250,000 with the brand over their lifetime.

# Conclusion 

Every organisation in this piece is really solving the problem of inefficiency, in a different manner. Shopify and Amazon shrink the number of people a decision has to move through. Ritz-Carlton and Toyota push the authority to act down to whoever is closest to the problem. UPS trusted an algorithm over instinct, and Musk bypassed the chain of command entirely - each one shortening the distance between an idea and the person who must build it and refusing to let 'good enough' quietly compound.

So let us not settle for good enough. Let us not relent in the face of adversity. By being sincere employees, focused and empowered to perform our task, we can do little things in a great way!

---

PS: I'd recommend going through the references; especially the piece on [Ritz Carlton](https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/01/15/the-amazing-true-story-of-the-hotel-that-saved-thomas-the-tank-engine/)

Read more at [kalkieshward.me/articles](https://kalkieshward.me/articles)

# References

Grammarly - [The Workforce Productivity Trends That Define 2025](https://www.grammarly.com/business/learn/workforce-productivity-glossary/)

Talaera - [The $1.2 Trillion Cost of Miscommunication in the Workplace (and How Managers Can Fix It)](https://www.talaera.com/corporate-training/cost-of-miscommunication-in-the-workplace/)

Entrepreneur - [‘Meeting Culture’ Is Costing Companies $101 Million a Year](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/meeting-culture-is-costing-companies-101-million-a-year/436272)

Gallup - [State of the Global Workplace 2026](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx)

Forbes - [This Company Is Canceling All Meetings With More Than Two Employees To Free Up Workers’ Time](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenamcgregor/2023/01/03/shopify-is-canceling-all-meetings-with-more-than-two-people-from-workers-calendars-and-urging-few-to-be-added-back/)

Inc - [How Jeff Bezos Used the 2-Pizza Rule to Put an End to Useless Meetings at Amazon](https://www.inc.com/nicholas-sonnenberg/jeff-bezos-2-pizza-rule-meetings-at-amazon.html)

Forbes - [The shortest distance between two points? At UPS, it’s complicated](https://fortune.com/2014/07/25/the-shortest-distance-between-two-points-at-ups-its-complicated/)

Psych Safety - [Psychological Safety: The Andon Cord](https://psychsafety.com/psychological-safety-79-the-andon-cord/)

Forbes - [Heroic Customer Service: When Ritz-Carlton Saved Thomas The Tank Engine](https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/01/15/the-amazing-true-story-of-the-hotel-that-saved-thomas-the-tank-engine/)

Read why 'good enough' is not nearly as good, and how organisations stay nimble and save time, resources and likely a great deal of money!

UPS Trucks Stopped Making Left Turns and Started Saving $400 Million a Year


![Man Standing in a Dessert on Top of a Dune](/images/articles/mirage.webp)

# Introduction

What makes a person happy? What would qualify a person to be called successful? As a student, I pondered over these thoughts.

Everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to be great. Yet one in ten adults are said to suffer from a depressive illness in any given year.

One is always curious why so many technological advancements have not led to a parallel improvement in people's satisfaction of life. To arrive upon such a paradoxical state of affairs is quite disheartening. To find the root cause of such a conundrum, one must journey inwards, and unravel one's own perceptions of success and happiness.

Some of the largest business tycoons who are said to have 'made it' in life, who have 'strived and succeeded', are found to suffer from depression. Yet a school teacher who lives his life in a humble suburb scraping together money to pay his rent, finds himself blissfully quenched.

Having read many biographies and several books on the matter, I have gained a few valuable insights that have helped me a great deal in leading a more fulfilling life. In sharing these insights, I hope you may benefit and lead a more satisfactory life.

# Finding Meaning Through Purpose

In the book 'Man's Search For Meaning', the concentration camp survivor and father of Logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, describes his belief that man's ultimate desire in life is meaning. A purpose. He talks of his own as well as the camp's inmates' experiences to shed light on how man endured the darkest times of his life.

Frankl describes that one could give meaning to his/her life through three means: through work, through love, or through honorable suffering.

In his first few days, Frankl chose not to 'run into the wire' and commit suicide. He chose to live for the sake of his profession and complete his work in psychoanalysis. He chose not to lose hope. He chose to observe the psychological effects of camp life on an inmate. In his most troubled and vulnerable times, Frankl stuck to the image of his wife, and the hope of meeting her after the war. Every man according to him, has a purpose. A purpose to which he could commit and devote his thoughts and time, in order to give meaning to his life. Every survivor of the camp is said to owe his life to such a cause. He believes in his soul, that everyone has a caring spouse, parent, or friend who has once walked this earth, wishing to see their loved one live graciously and suffer honorably and meaningfully.

# Transforming Suffering into Meaning

There is a practice in Japan and many eastern countries that finds its roots in the ancient and rich history where terminally ill patients offer prayers that their suffering ceases the suffering in the world. They believe that their suffering can be transformed into something positive and meaningful.

# The Science of Happiness

The longest study in the world conducted by Harvard on over 700 participants finds that the primary source that makes people feel happy are supportive relationships.

A study conducted by Dunn, Aknin and Norton with over 600 participants found that volunteering for a charity or donating towards a charitable cause has a direct positive relationship to happiness and satisfaction with life.

Your life can certainly become more meaningful and fulfilling. It's up to you to move forward with what you believe and care for most.

# Breaking Free from the Matrix

While the teacher in our story may not have driven a Mercedes, he certainly led a meaningful life. At the pinnacle of the technological revolution, our lives have become cluttered with information, deadlines, and commitments that most of us do not care for. Yet the tenaciousness with which we are made to pursue such goals by schools and society has led us astray.

How do we escape from the matrix you say? How do we quench our thirst for satisfaction?

It's simple. We start our day with a compliment to someone we love, we finish our day with a charitable act and a sense of gratitude for all we have. We fill our lives with meaning one moment at a time, in our own way, in a better way.

---

A philosophical exploration of what truly makes a person happy and successful, drawing insights from Viktor Frankl's experiences and modern research on fulfilment.

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