the.com/playbook
The plan you swear you'll adapt, then run exactly as written anyway.
means A standard set of plays or strategies for handling a given situation, especially in sports, politics, or business.
from Straightforward compound of 'play' + 'book' — originally, literally, the bound set of diagrammed football or basketball plays that coaches handed players to memorize. By the mid-20th century it had already started running loose from the gridiron into politics and corporate strategy, wherever people wanted to talk about tactics as if they'd been drawn up with Xs and Os.
- origin
- literally a football coach's binder of diagrams
- business use
- signals confidence while hiding you're improvising
- red flag
- when everyone's playbook looks suspiciously identical
- irony
- the best plays are the ones not in it