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Stepping Up to the Plate
“If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough.”
– Edward Everett Hale
‘Stepping up to the plate’ is one of those American sports metaphors that is widely used in the business world. It has its origin in baseball, where the word plate is synonymous with base (actually a little plate is kept at each base to mark its location) and ‘stepping up to the plate’ means taking your turn as a batter at the home plate to face the pitcher.
In management terminology, this phrase has several broad interpretations. In its simplest version, it means ‘to face up to one’s responsibilities or meet one’s obligations’. However, the ‘responsibilities’ implied in this idiom are not run-of-the-mill ...
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