Your constraint is ...

I spent this last week with Dr Eliyahu Goldratt. As many of you know I used to work for him as his Global Marketing Director. He invited me to come and check out what he’s been working on. So, here’s my take on it …

One of the key differences in his thinking is that management attention is the constraint.


While your bottleneck may move around, the only reason it moves or that you even have an internal bottleneck is because either 1) you’re not paying attention; and/or 2) you’re not focused on dealing with it; and/or 3) you’re not taking the right actions.


So the issue is one of focus (at least initially). Most management teams are not working on the right things and waste a lot of time doing what really doesn’t make a difference, most of which doesn’t need to be done.


A management team will be effective if they do the things that need to be done and don’t waste time doing what doesn’t need to be done, shouldn’t be done or multi-tasking between too many things. Doing the latter is what consumes all your time and leaves you little or no time to do what should be and needs to be done.

That is all really easy to say, but harder to execute.

Let’s say that we ARE paying attention and that we ARE focused. Now all we have to do is to take the right actions. Piece of cake, right?

No.

… because the action that you think is the right action typically is not. If you’ve been studying Theory of Constraints for a while or reading my stuff for a while you know that our intuition about what specifically to go and do is often WRONG.

Here are just 4 examples:

So, here’s my advice.


1. Understand what you need to be focused on to meet your goals. I’m assuming that you ARE clear on your goal.


2. Focus on that and nothing else (stop multi-tasking and stop your people from multi-tasking).


3. Get’er done, one tactic at time.


If you are not sure of any or all of these – get yourself one of those TOC consultant types. A good TOC expert can get you focused, help you figure out how to stay focused, and get you set up with the right strategy and tactics (specific actions to take) to achieve the results you’re after.


And the return on this investment should be fast and substantial. If you are not sure what your next step should be, contact me for a free 1 hour strategy session. There’s no charge, we’ll see if we can get you pointed in the right direction.



Wishing you success,


Dr Lisa


President, Science of Business, and your favorite TOC Consultant type!

P.S. FOR CUSTOM JOB SHOPS ONLY: The next Velocity Scheduling System Coaching Program starting soon!


P.P.S. Ready to increase sales? You need a Mafia Offer? The ON-LINE Mafia Offer Boot Camp is open for registration!
 
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