3 Strategic Steps to Solve Business Problems By Focusing on Constraints
What if you could remove the shackles that hinder your business growth with just one powerful strategy?
As a small business aerospace firm CEO, I've weathered many storms to keep my company flying amidst turbulent skies. Billion-dollar giants like Boeing could have devoured us. Yet, here we are, over thirty-five years later, standing strong and growing. How?
By focusing on something most companies neglect: constraints.
Just as a plane can't fly to its destination with a malfunctioning engine, your business can't grow with unaddressed constraints, no matter how hard you focus on opportunities.
Here's how to address your constraints to take your potential to the next level.
Step 1: Identify Your Constraints to Solve Business Problems
A business will only grow to its limits and no further.
Many leaders focus on adding potential to their business, mistakenly thinking this solves the constraint, but it doesn't. It masks it. In any system, including a business, there are certain constraints that limit growth.
These constraints must be fixed for growth and opportunity to occur.
And better yet, these constraints should be fixed by systems.
Knowing what issues to address in the correct sequence unleashes the right energy to grow.
You can have a big revenue goal, but if you're limited by the capacity and effectiveness of your sales team, that's what needs to be fixed first.
Step 2: Build Systems, Not Goals
"The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game," writes James Clear.
"Achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. We often think to change, we need to change the results, but that's never the case. What needs to be changed is the systems that cause those results."
Solving constraints at the results level is a temporary fix—like a bandaid patching a severed limb.
You need to make changes at the system level to make a lasting improvement to solve business problems, forever.
When you "Fix the inputs...the outputs will fix themselves." Goals give you something to work towards, but they're short-lived. They're fleeting and unreliable. You're always in a state of pre-success failure or actual failure if the goals are never realized.
Change isn't about accomplishing a single goal but rather the ongoing process of continuous improvement.
Step 3: Always Improve Your Systems
Just as a plane requires constant maintenance, your systems, too, need regular improvements.
They encourage consistency and serve as platforms for continuous improvement.
"Consider the results of performing the same task or function over and over and over again, always doing it the same way, yet trying each time to do it faster, better, more economically, and constantly gathering input from everyone involved. You not only have a system, but you also have one that will inevitably result in increased productivity," writes Paul Akers in 2 Seconds Lean.
So, instead of a once-and-done goal, systems continue to work for you indefinitely, even when the plan is achieved.
Systems are an asset that keeps on giving, and they help you make permanent changes to your constraints.
It all starts with having better standards.
Once you know what standards to aim for, you can focus on fixing the constraints suffocating crucial areas of your business.
