The Occasional Miracle

I’ve been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid. Especially the original series.

And sure, there was Kirk. There was Spock.

But there was something about Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, chief engineer of the USS Enterprise, that made me say: Yep. I’m a fan of that guy.

Why?

I don’t know.

Maybe it was the accent.

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,1 Kirk asks him how long it will take to get the Enterprise ready to go back out.

Eight weeks, Scotty tells him.

But Kirk doesn’t have eight weeks, so Scotty will do it in two.

Kirk, apparently doing some math he should perhaps have done several movies (and several TV seasons) ago, asks whether Scotty has always multiplied his repair estimates by a factor of four.

“Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?”

There’s a name for this, because of course there is: the Scotty Principle.2

Broadly, it’s the idea that you give yourself more time than you think the work will actually take, then look like a miracle worker when you deliver sooner.

I don’t actually do that.

At least, not exactly.

I’m not routinely multiplying my estimates by four. That would be ridiculous.

But the basic idea?

Yeah.

I get it.

An hour!

Years later, Star Trek: The Next Generation brought Scotty back in “Relics,”3 where he discovers that the next generation of Starfleet engineers has apparently learned nothing.

Geordi La Forge, chief engineer of a newer Enterprise, tells Scotty he promised Captain Picard an analysis in an hour.

Scotty asks how long it will really take.

“An hour!”

This is horrifying to Scotty.

Geordi has told his captain exactly how long the analysis will take. No padding. No buffer. No opportunity to pull off the impossible ahead of schedule.

“Oh, laddie. You’ve got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.”

The problem is, Geordi’s perspective makes perfect sense on the surface.

If something takes an hour, tell someone it takes an hour.

Except I don’t think “How long does this take?” and “When can you have it to me?” are actually the same question.

If you ask me when I can have something for you, I’m thinking about the work, obviously. But I’m also thinking: Who’s asking? What’s it for? When do you actually need it? Is someone else waiting for this before they can start their part? What else is happening? Is this something we’ve done a hundred times, or are we figuring it out as we go?

I could keep going. That could take days.

Somewhere underneath all of those questions is the hour Geordi is talking about: the hour where everything goes exactly right.

The data is where it’s supposed to be. It’s clean. The methodology is straightforward. Nothing unexpected happens. Your Teams notifications aren’t chiming incessantly. Nobody suddenly needs something else. You don’t get halfway through and find a number that makes you say, “Wait, what?”

Sometimes that really is the hour you get.

I don’t generally promise based on it.

There’s a whole body of research around the planning fallacy, our tendency to underestimate how long things will take when we focus on the plan in front of us rather than what has actually happened in similar situations before.4

Best case, normal, and worst case are all real.

Normal and best case often forget about worst case.

4:20

When I started at WWE in 2013, I inherited responsibility for a ratings report that went out the day after each of our shows (or one of our key competitors’ shows) aired.

I remained responsible for it until I left WWE in 2023.

I assume it did not nobly retire in my honor.

Depending on what was on that week, we might do two of these reports. We might do six. We did them 52 weeks a year.

Every week.

For as long as I was there.

What started as a seemingly basic viewership and quarter-hour breakdown became considerably more complicated over time. We added multiple demographics, trends and benchmarks, what was happening on the show during each quarter hour and how viewership moved, competitive programming and how that performed.

It wasn’t an insights report. That would have been insane to ask for.

It was already insane enough at that point, given the volume of data included.

But it gave us the basis for what questions would come next.

And it went out at 4:20.

Not 4:20ish.

Not “when you get around to it.”

At 4:20.

Key executives were waiting for it. Writers and producers were waiting for it.

Vince McMahon was waiting for it.

Afternoon production meetings relied on that early reporting, and sometimes what we sent could affect that night’s show.

If 4:20 passed without the report, the questions started.

I put a lot of pressure on myself about hitting send on time. Maybe a tiny bit more than was necessary. (If you knew Vince McMahon, maybe I DIDN’T.)

I also inherited a 4:10 deliverable.

It had one number in it.

Ten minutes later, that same number would appear in the much deeper report, along with the information people actually needed.

I thought the 4:10 email was a waste of time.

That didn’t mean I could just stop sending it.

I advocated for getting rid of it more than once.

Eventually, the 4:10 went away.

The 4:20 didn’t.

The 4:20 had a reason.

Meanwhile, I got faster.

I improved templates and processes. I learned the report inside and out. Toward the end of my time there, I might not have been the person doing all of the execution anymore, but it was still my responsibility.

And when the process got faster, the report did not automatically move to 4:05.

Keeping that buffer meant I could check my work or someone else’s. I could start anticipating the questions I knew were probably coming. Sometimes I’d find an extra nugget of information worth putting into the report itself.

Getting faster could make the 4:20 better.

Nobody was asking for 4:05.

Who am I to offer a miracle they don’t want?

I want to be the miracle worker

To be clear, sometimes I absolutely want to deliver the miracle.

I take pride in being able to pull something off. I want the reputation that comes with it. I like proving to myself that I can do it.

And sure, sometimes I want the credit.

Praise is nice. (Hey, I’m human.)

There are professional benefits too. Being known as the person who can figure something out can open doors.

I don’t know that I’ve consciously sat there thinking, I shall now deliver this early so everyone will be impressed with me. But I’m sure I’ve recognized the opportunity to exceed an expectation and taken it.

I want to be the person who pulls off the thing nobody thought could be pulled off.

I want other people to know I can do it.

I also want to know I can do it.

I just don’t want to live there.

If I tell you I can get something to you by Wednesday and everything somehow goes perfectly and I’m finished Monday, that makes me nervous.

Did I miss something?

I’m probably not sending it Monday.

I’ll look at it Tuesday with fresh eyes. Depending on what it is, maybe I’ll ask someone else to look too. If it still looks good, I’ll send it.

And when I can, I’ll be clear: this is sooner than expected. It won’t always be this way.

How candid I can be about that depends on the audience.

Because if best case becomes normal, where does normal go?

And where the hell does worst case go?

Like it or not, we know organizations use past performance to shape future expectations. There’s an entire body of research on target ratcheting that gets considerably more nuanced than what happens in real life when someone says:

“But you did it by Tuesday last time.”5

Also, if the miracle becomes the expectation, it isn’t a miracle anymore.

And I like the miracle.

Who’s asking for a miracle?

But the timeline isn’t the only thing I’m considering. There’s a person on the other end of the ask too.

Not because I maintain a list of people who qualify for Christine Prime Delivery.

(Though, if someone’s an asshole, it’s definitely not inspiring a miracle from me.)

Liking someone isn’t really the point.

I’m not giving someone a better commitment because I like them more. I might be willing to spend extra effort for them.

Within reason.

And not always.

It’s deeper than that. There’s the relationship we’ve had, what I know about how they work, what’s happening this particular time, why they need it, what else is going on, who gets affected if I say no.

If someone I’ve worked with for five years, who has always been reliable and respectful, suddenly needs something unusually fast, I’m going to ask why.

That helps me frame how I’m going to push.

Because I care.

Someone I barely know might tell me they screwed up and they’re in a bind. I don’t want them to suffer. I want to help them grow. I can’t promise a miracle, but I’m likely to try.

Maybe we build a relationship through that.

It’s how they come to me the NEXT time that shapes what happens after.

If every request starts becoming an emergency, the “let’s be real about this” talk has to happen.

And if you’re an asshole but there’s an excellent why, especially one where the consequences really fall on other people?

Maybe a lesser miracle.

(Your mileage may vary.)

There isn’t a formula. There can’t be. The same person might get a different answer from me on Tuesday than they did on Monday because Tuesday is different.

This is part of what I recognize in Kirk and Scotty.

They have shared history. Scotty understands the stakes. Kirk understands Scotty well enough to know there’s a difference between impossible and I’ll see what I can do.

And Scotty knows why Kirk is asking.

Granted, when Kirk says something is urgent, there is a decent chance the ship will explode if Scotty doesn’t figure it out. Most of my stakeholders have not had that particular advantage (even if they acted like the world would end without the ratings).

The why always matters to me.

If protecting my buffer creates an emergency for somebody downstream, I haven’t really solved anything.

Isn’t that lying?

Decades after Scotty explained his miracle-worker strategy, Star Trek: Lower Decks decided to poke at the whole thing in “Temporal Edict.”6

Lower Decks takes place later in the Star Trek timeline, aboard the USS Cerritos, and follows a group of junior officers rather than the bridge crew.

Rutherford, an engineer, explains “creative estimating” to Tendi, one of the newest members of the crew: never admit how long a job actually takes, exaggerate the estimate, finish early, look like a hero.

Sounds like a certain engineer we know.

Tendi immediately asks:

“Isn’t that lying?”

Good question!

“Creative estimating” feels looser than what I’m talking about. A distant cousin, maybe.

But I also don’t think there’s a clean line I can draw between buffer and bullshit.

It moves.

The larger the buffer, the less defensible it is. That doesn’t automatically make a large buffer wrong. There had just better be a good reason for it.

And yes, somewhere on that spectrum, it probably does become lying.

I’m not sure I can tell you exactly where.

Captain Freeman eventually finds out about buffer time thanks to Boimler, another one of the junior officers and the rare person on the Cerritos who apparently thinks having every minute of his day scheduled sounds great.

Freeman eliminates the buffer. Now everything has an exact quota and an exact deadline.

It goes terribly.

Everyone is frantic. Everyone is exhausted. The ship functions worse.

Freeman, like so many “business experts” focused on results and efficiency, is missing the human element of it all.

When there’s no breathing room, everything suffers.

Not just work.

Eventually, Boimler is the one who has to tell her that the crew needs room to get the job done. Freeman backs off and trusts them to do it.

I understand the temptation, though.

If you look at the time between tasks and see only unused capacity, getting rid of it can look like efficiency.

I’ve just seen enough of what happens next to know that’s not always the case.

Sometimes 4:21 is okay

Early in my career, I didn’t always feel like I had the power to challenge the way things were done.

Some of that was seniority.

Some of it was confidence.

Until you push for a change and it is actually accepted, it’s hard to believe that you CAN.

And sometimes you try and fail while you’re figuring out the structure you’re part of.

I tried more than once on the 4:10.

By the time I succeeded, part of what had changed was my credibility. I also understood better how to frame the argument for the decision-making audience.

Building credibility gives you more room to challenge things.

That is not the same as earning the right to breathing room.

Nobody should have to earn the space to exist without stress.

But credibility, confidence and seniority can give you more ability to challenge the deadline in the first place.

I spent my entire time at WWE with the 4:20.

And the 4:20 mattered.

But I also learned something along the way: sometimes 4:21 is okay.

Sometimes tomorrow is okay.

“Tomorrow is okay” means there’s more to life than work.

Except, of course, when tomorrow ISN’T okay.

Sometimes there really is no room in the ask, and I have to push. It can be tempting to soften that because it feels kinder. If I actually need it today, pretending I don’t is disingenuous.

Give people as much lead time as possible.

Don’t ask for miracles all the time.

Don’t ask someone to do something you’re not willing to do yourself.

And if the whole team looks at something ridiculous and says, “Yeah, let’s do it”?

I’m game.

It’s still more my responsibility to keep an eye on what we’re asking of people, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to pull off the miracle together.

There are also times when the answer is just no.

Maybe we can change the scope. Move something else. Give you something preliminary. Maybe there’s another answer I haven’t thought of yet.

Or maybe the thing you’re asking for is truly impossible.

Life is not a motivational poster.7

There are things I won’t sacrifice just to make the clock work.

I can’t deliver something if I can’t stand behind it.

If you deliver a “miracle” but the data is faulty, was that really a miracle?

Sometimes you just can’t work the miracle.

The cost is too great.

He wasn’t always a miracle worker

Star Trek turns 60 this year, and somehow we’re still learning new things about characters who have been around almost as long as the franchise itself.

Most recently, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds gave me a new piece of Scotty.

Strange New Worlds takes place before the original series and reimagines an earlier era of the Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike, with younger versions of several characters we already know.8

So this is Scotty before he becomes the Scotty I grew up knowing.

It also gave us Pelia.

Pelia is the Enterprise’s chief engineer when this younger Scotty comes aboard, and she was one of his professors at Starfleet Academy.9 She’s also a Lanthanite and has lived for thousands of years.10

Her longevity means she occasionally references pieces of human history and what we think of as modern pop culture as things she actually remembers, which may be part of why I like her so much.

In “Off-Hour,”11 we see a young Scotty who isn’t the finished version yet.

He gets overwhelmed.

I know what that feels like.

It doesn’t make me think he’s less competent. I know I’m competent even when I’m overwhelmed.

He reaches a point where he doesn’t think he can keep doing this.

Pelia pushes him.

She tells him he has to be a miracle worker.

You could read that as just a winking nod to the Scotty we already know he’ll become.

To me, it’s more than that.

There are times as a leader or mentor when your instinct is let me protect you.

And there are times when there isn’t room for that.

Let me encourage you to greatness is just as valid.

Pelia also pushes Scotty to listen to the ship. To pay attention to what this ship is telling him rather than only what should theoretically be happening.

It reminds me a little of asking, “What’s the real ask?”

Not the exact same thing.

But there’s something there.

What got me most was the new information itself.

I had always known the finished version first.

The engineer who could tell Kirk something was impossible and then somehow do it anyway.

The guy who admitted to padding his estimates to protect his reputation as a miracle worker.

The older Scotty who was horrified to discover Geordi had told his captain exactly how long something would take.

But Scotty didn’t arrive fully formed.

He got overwhelmed.

He had someone who knew him before he became that guy.

Someone pushed him when he needed to be pushed.

I loved that new information.

It didn’t make Scotty less impressive. It made him more multidimensional. More human.

I don’t know why Scotty was one of my favorites when I was a kid.

Maybe it was the accent.

Maybe there was something else there.

Maybe I just liked Scotty.

You’re allowed to just like things.

I still like Scotty.

I just understand him differently now.