I'm looking for a word that is defined by the following:

gistfile1.txt

__________ - noun 

a situation where one relatively small change can influence the
potential energy of an outcome by orders of magnitude.


example: if you have a fair coin and flip it, you have a 50/50 shot of 
heads or tails. An intelligent person would not place wagers on this game if played to infinity. 

If you change the weighting and make it 49/51 then that intelligent person 
would place all of their money on the 51 side if they could play the game forever. 

The change from 50 to 51 is in one context rather small (2% increase), but
the potential change for the infinite bettor is huge. 


I don't view this as a 'tipping point' in the Gladwell sense. It's not
really about leverage either, more about finding the situations that have a high potential for leverage. 


I've been thinking about this concept a lot. Whether it's finding small 
changes in my development workflow that can result in huge benefits, or 
realizing that by spending just 10 seconds to clean a dish immediately
rather than stacking it up in the sink, my reality at the 
end of the night is 100 times better.

Further thoughts from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lever

If you have a lever and fulcrum but no ability to move the 100kg weight to your position of leverage, this is not an advantageous reality for you.

However, if you're told the weight is already in place, you have your leverage. If the change in the weight's location is small, you have an example of what I'm thinking about.

Perhaps the definition should be "a situation in which a small change drastically changes your leverage; also, you are able to help influence or perhaps even affect that change".

Part of the reason I'm bing a bit pedantic about this is that there's a difference between seeking out situations where you have a good amount of leverage, and paying attention to situations that are one move away from that. Often those little changes are not obvious, but are supremely important.