Local Minima

Local minima are solutions that look optimal in a narrow view but hide a better overall outcome. In optimization theory a local minimum is better than its immediate neighbors, yet far from the global optimum. The article shows how that math mirrors everyday business decisions.

On a delayed flight the airline had to add extra fuel. Adding fuel makes the plane heavier, which in turn requires more fuel-a classic feedback loop. The crew balancing fuel weight against cost illustrates a local optimization: the fuel planners minimize their metric (fuel cost) without accounting for the passenger experience of further delays.

The same trade-off appears in cars: extra gasoline adds weight and reduces mileage, yet filling up avoids the risk of running out mid-trip. The author quantifies the impact, showing a 2% loss in efficiency translates into several extra gallons per year. These concrete numbers make the abstract concept tangible.

The piece then widens the lens to organizations. Advertising teams push revenue per session while engagement drops, operations trim inventory while sales miss spikes, finance cuts costs while engineering falls behind on innovation. Each group can point to improving metrics, yet the company slides into a worse equilibrium-a business-wide local minimum.

Leaders must own the global maximum, creating counterbalancing metrics that prevent one team's gain from another's loss. On-time departures should be weighed against fuel efficiency, retention against acquisition, and customer experience against raw revenue. Only a cross-silo view can keep the organization from settling into suboptimal stability.