Larry uses random chance to decide which of two friends to visit every day for a month. Each friend lives an eight-minute subway ride away, but they live in opposite directions from the closest station to Larry. Trains to each friend’s neighborhood arrive at Larry’s station every ten minutes, so he walks to the platform and boards the first train to arrive. After committing to this experiment every day for a month, he recognizes that he has seen his friend Henri 85% of the time and his other friend Cole only 15% of the time. He traveled to the starting station at spontaneous times and boards whichever train arrived first. Why does he end up visiting Henri so much more frequently?

The transit schedule is such that the train to Henri’s neighborhood arrives one minute before the train to Cole’s neighborhood; therefore, it is likely that the next train is headed towards Henri since there is only a single-minute period every ten minutes when the next train departs and heads in Cole’s direction. More specifically, trains to Henri’s arrive at 08,:18,:28, etc, versus Cole’s train at 09,:19,:29, etc.

We wonder why we are not selected more often to do the work that matters. Sometimes, we live in the shadow of the more dominant enterprise. Other times, we do not retain the network reach of another cause. Sometimes, we offer the same service, but the schedule works against us. Understanding how and where we are uniquely positioned to act is part of assessing our competitive advantage. When you have an emergency and call 911, dispatch tries to assess the nature of your call before sending emergency services. Launching the Confined Space Rescue Team with ropes and flexible stretchers does not solve a working structure fire. Dispatching the Swift Water Rescue Team clad in neoprene and flippers does not work well for a winter avalanche rescue. Knowing when to launch our services and to whom is vital to serving with impact.