Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I can move the world. -Archimedes, 287-212 BC...

an understanding of leverage can enable one to apply force to something far out of proportion to one's individual strength...

we must worry about efficiency really at only one point in the system: the constraint or leverage point. The efficiency at non-constraints - almost all of the rest of the system - matters only when a nonconstraint's inefficiency puts it in danger of becoming the system constraint...

All systems - whether commercial, government agency, not-for-profit, or social - are constrained in some way. That constraint represents a leverage point in each system, a point at which a measured amount of effort will produce a disproportionate benefit to the system.