From Strategycentral.org blog
Every organization has limits to what it can do. Limits to the money it can spend. Limits to the time it can invest in a project. Limits to the manpower it can employ. Those limits can be thought of as constraints. Some elements of those constraints are just “facts of life”; imposed by cash on hand, etc. Others are more self-imposed. Budgets are a form of self-imposed constraints. And there is an upside to constraints.
Michael Porter has said that “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” which is a kind of constraint. I tripped across an interesting companion concept in Michael Raynor’s The Strategy Paradox. He writes that, “constraints…are the cell walls of a living organism without which the vital essence would bleed away (p. 181).” Isn’t that an interesting way of thinking about the upside of constraints?
Choosing what not to do, the concept that you can’t do everything (or at least not successfully), is at the heart of a good strategy. And the truth might be that not having the appropriate constraints leads to your organization’s “vital essence” bleeding away.
What constraints have you intentionally imposed? What constraints might you need to put in? Interesting…don’t you think?
.How aware is your organization of the need to thoughtfully develop your plan? As you can probably tell by now it’s a little bit of a hobby horse with me…frustrating when there’s really no thought to consequences or effects of what is done. Recently I wrote about the upside of constraints.
There’s a great parallel in an interesting interview that Guy Kawasaki did with Tim Berry about developing a business plan. In talking about the important qualities of a plan, Berry says that a plan sets “priorities with the understanding that you can’t do everything.” He goes on to say that “after all the buzzwords and analysis, strategy is focus. What can you do better than anyone else? What’s your core competence?”
When you think about your organization, is there an awareness of the fact that you can’t do everything? Or is there the attempt to actually be all things to all people? Do you know what you do better than anyone else? What your core competencies are?
These questions are along the same line as a couple of great ones that I found in Drucker’s The Practice of Management. “What have we done well and without any great strain while somebody else has failed to do the same job?” The corollary is good as well. “What do we do poorly while someone else seems to have no difficulty with it? (p. 114).
These questions are at the heart of good planning. Can you talk through those questions with your team? Do you ever reserve time to slow down long enough to wrestle with this kind of discussion? Without it, you’re toast.
