The Way to Fly
Eliyahu Goldratt in his revolutionary “Theory of Constraints” describes how every organization faces at least one constraint which prevents the system from achieving a higher performance relative to its goal.
Come to think of it, the theory of constraints is more pervasive than we might accept in the first interface. Aren’t we constantly “fenced” by multiple circumstances that prevent us from achieving a higher performance relative to our goal?
Out of the many learnings I owe to my B-School, the chart-topper is undoubtedly developing a knack to work in constraints – be it that of time, information, or simply motivation. Two years of a very high-pressure environment, created on lines of real corporate world, was designed to hone the ability to hold your breath under-water and still perform. Translating that to the corporate world some of the best performers around me were those who identified and inevitably found their way around constraints of all shapes and sizes- what Goldratt would term as an excellent exhibition of “de-bottlenecking”.
Going deeper, is it possible that these constraints might just be opportunities incognito?
Being conditioned to envision using weights as the sole method of toning your body, I was so pleasantly surprised to discover innovative ways of using your own body weight to work out. Especially for muscles that cannot be worked on solely with weights – a constraint again – body weight serves as a blessing in disguise to tone those difficult to reach muscles. At the same wavelength, most of the obstacles we encounter do serve as excellent stimuli that shake us out of our comfortable but vegetating stupor and coax us to think beyond the ordinary.
And the greatest characteristic of constraints is that they leave you feeling completely humbled. Being on a dizzy roller-coaster of a free life in my own country with the warm security of loved ones to catch me if I fall left me taking most of the things for granted in life. Fortunately movement to a foreign country brought with it multiple constraints that jolted me out of feeling blasé and provided me with this new-found taste to relish every single stimulus I experienced.
Whenever encountered by a constraint I often remind myself of my favorite line from Jonathan Livingston Seagull:
“Poor Fletch. Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.''
And sure enough, more often than not, there is a whole new way to fly……
Eliyahu Goldratt in his revolutionary “Theory of Constraints” describes how every organization faces at least one constraint which prevents the system from achieving a higher performance relative to its goal.
Come to think of it, the theory of constraints is more pervasive than we might accept in the first interface. Aren’t we constantly “fenced” by multiple circumstances that prevent us from achieving a higher performance relative to our goal?
Out of the many learnings I owe to my B-School, the chart-topper is undoubtedly developing a knack to work in constraints – be it that of time, information, or simply motivation. Two years of a very high-pressure environment, created on lines of real corporate world, was designed to hone the ability to hold your breath under-water and still perform. Translating that to the corporate world some of the best performers around me were those who identified and inevitably found their way around constraints of all shapes and sizes- what Goldratt would term as an excellent exhibition of “de-bottlenecking”.
Going deeper, is it possible that these constraints might just be opportunities incognito?
Being conditioned to envision using weights as the sole method of toning your body, I was so pleasantly surprised to discover innovative ways of using your own body weight to work out. Especially for muscles that cannot be worked on solely with weights – a constraint again – body weight serves as a blessing in disguise to tone those difficult to reach muscles. At the same wavelength, most of the obstacles we encounter do serve as excellent stimuli that shake us out of our comfortable but vegetating stupor and coax us to think beyond the ordinary.
And the greatest characteristic of constraints is that they leave you feeling completely humbled. Being on a dizzy roller-coaster of a free life in my own country with the warm security of loved ones to catch me if I fall left me taking most of the things for granted in life. Fortunately movement to a foreign country brought with it multiple constraints that jolted me out of feeling blasé and provided me with this new-found taste to relish every single stimulus I experienced.
Whenever encountered by a constraint I often remind myself of my favorite line from Jonathan Livingston Seagull:
“Poor Fletch. Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly.''
And sure enough, more often than not, there is a whole new way to fly……
posted by Garima at 12:49 PM
3 Comments:
Very nice. Actually your first post which I fully understood :-)
Keep it going!
Hai Garima, Excellent one. We all face this kind of situation and as you rightly said every obstacle is an opportunity to prove your capabilities.
In our Service industry we always treat any complaint as compliment only which gives you an opportunity to rectify your procedures.
Good Luck and keep it going.
Ram
Agree with Arun. Finally a post with a hint of Gari I know. Completely agree with the possibility of constraints being opportunities waiting to be recognised.
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