Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, put that word into the business lexicon in 2008 when she first published Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise, a scholarly treatise that lent dignity and rigor to what might be called a seat-of-the-pants approach to starting new ventures.

In 2022, when Sarasvathy published an updated version of Effectuation, she earned the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research in recognition of the concept’s importance to understanding the process of innovation. For the non-scholar, Effectuation’s virtue lies in the intuitive simplicity and practicality of its basic principles:

Bird in the Hand: Begin with what you have. Rather than aim toward a specific goal from the start, the entrepreneur should ask, “Who am I? What do I know? Whom do I know?” By focusing on your skills, resources, and connections, you can begin to create something meaningful. Instead of trying to gather what you need to achieve some distant goal, start building toward it with what you have on hand.

Affordable Loss: Traditional business plans often focus on maximizing returns, but Sarasvathy introduces the concept of Affordable Loss. Instead of trying to predict future profits she advises asking, “What can I afford to lose?” That mental shift frees the entrepreneur to take bold steps without fearing catastrophic failure. 

Crazy Quilt: In entrepreneurship, success often depends on collaboration. The Crazy Quilt principle is about working with people who share a vision and are willing to put some skin in the game. This creates a patchwork quilt team invested in their common success. 

Making Lemonade: Unexpected challenges and events are inevitable. The Lemonade Principle urges entrepreneurs to turn setbacks into opportunities. Use each challenge as a chance to learn, adapt, and grow. This mindset keeps you resilient and ready to make the best of difficult situations and alert to unforeseen opportunities.

Pilots in the Plane: Entrepreneurs should see themselves as Pilots in the Plane. They try to chart the best course through a turbulent world. By taking control of the factors they can influence they have a chance to create their own luck and guide their ventures toward success.

The common sense appeal of Saraswathy’s principles arise from her experiences as a young woman who started a business to make and deliver lunches to office workers in Mumbai, India. 

As Sarasvathy relates in an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, the venture at first proved so successful that she hired a delivery driver so she could focus on making and selling more meals. Alas, that backfired. Sales fell. A customer survey revealed why.

“It turns out there was something about my personality and these conversations we had that people missed,” she told host Shankar Vedantam. “They were ordering (lunch) partly to see me deliver.”

Effectual thinking helps people with big dreams relax and draw satisfaction by taking tiny steps forward and accepting the inevitable detours on their journey. 

Instead of asking, “What do I want from the future?” Sarasvathy suggests that entrepreneurs ask, “What do I have to offer that might change the future?”

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The special election became necessary after Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Bonta’s husband to fill the post of state Attorney General office. Xavier Becerra had vacated the AG’s office after Newsom appointed him to replace former U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, who resigned after she was elected Vice President and tiebreaker in the U.S. Senate.

As a volunteer poll worker, I didn’t see much election business that day. Only 10 people showed up to vote in person. Most votes were cast by mail.

… America is not so much a democracy as a confederation of one-party states, the difference being which party controls which state …

The principal benefit of this exercise in civic duty was giving me a chance to spend 14 hours in laughter-filled discussion with nine fellow citizens who were, like me, more interested in the electoral process than in the candidate tallies.

Our mixed-race, mixed-gender group skewed toward Medicare eligibility. But one of us was a new college grad. He informed us that he’d spent the last four years studying what had gone wrong with America. We smiled. Some of us had spent lifetimes wondering.

What I found sad and disturbing about that day was learning that more than $1.5 million had been spent in that special election to determine whether Bob Bonta’s wife should replace him –she eventually did — in a state legislature in which Democrats already control both houses, as well as the office of governor.

No matter who had won this election, nothing much would have changed. California is a one-party state.And that’s the norm in America.

The National Conference of State Legislators website shows that Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office in 14 states. Republicans hold the same two-fisted control of government in 23 states. Only twelve states have governments in which control is divided between opposing parties. Nebraska, which has a unicameral legislature, is left out of the count.

America is not so much a democracy as a confederation of one-party states, the difference being which party controls which state.

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