crank the handle

English

Pronunciation

Audio (AU) (file)

Verb

crank the handle (third-person singular simple present cranks the handle, present participle cranking the handle, simple past and past participle cranked the handle)

(business, idiomatic) To perform a process; to do some work.
- 2006, Rebecca Jordan and Kirsty Weir, In Good Company: The essential business start-up guide for women, A & C Black, page 229:
  There are various ways you can do this, including creating capacity by building a strong team, or by setting the sales stream up in such a way that anyone can crank the handle and keep the products going out and the customer demand coming in.
- 2008, Brad Thor, The Last Patriot, Atria Books:
  “What do you mean?” said Ozbek. “All he has to do is slide some paper in there, ink the quill and crank the handle”
- 2009, Nick Gifford, Information Security: Managing the Legal Risks, CCH Australia:
  The suspension of one's critical faculty is not possible in a risk management exercsie. It is not simply a “crank the handle” process: intelligent analysis needs to be applied at all times throughout the activity, including critical review of the appropriateness of any methodology for an organisation's specific circumstances.
- 2010, Robert Mnookin, Bargaining with the Devil: When the Negotiate, When to Fight, Simon & Schuster, page 32-33:
  These five questions provide a framework for analyzing the benefits and costs, opportunities and risks. It won't provide a bright-line test or a crank-the-handle algorithm. But you shouldn't be looking for that here anyway.