Normal day to day operation of a business should have enough slack to allow people to spend time on experiments and initiatives, or simply to do a particularly

Normal day to day operation of a business should have enough slack to allow people to spend time on experiments and initiatives, or simply to do a particularly good job, rather than merely struggle with the strictly necessary part of their workload. Abnormal operation in which deadlines can be met by cutting corners and/or everything goes well and/or enough people are overworked appears to be more common. For example, think of the company culture in which multi-month projects can be planned without accounting for vacation time.