A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT A BEAUTIFUL CONSTRAINT How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business ADAM MORGAN & MARK BARDEN Cover and text design: Helen Redstone Tis book is printed on acid-free paper. Copyright © 2015 by eatbigfsh. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best eforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifcally disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or ftness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. Te advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http:// booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. ISBN 978-1-118-89901-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-89943-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-89945-8 (ebk) Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Cleo, Josie, Will, and Louis CONTENTS Introduction 1 8. Constraint-Driven Cultures 172 Te beauty in constraint, and why it matters How big companies have learned to love constraints 1. Victim, Neutralizer, & Transformer 16 Our starting relationship with constraints 9. Scarcity and Abundance 194 Why this capability is so important to 2. Break Path Dependence 34 all of us today Te behaviors and practices that stop us seeing opportunity in constraint 10. Making Constraints Beautiful 208 How to use the ABC approach 3. Ask Propelling Questions 56 How to frame the constraint to force 11. L eadership & The Future of breakthrough Constraints 224 Te opportunity for progress 4. Can-If 78 How to fnd solutions to constraint-driven Notes and Sources 235 problems Bibliography and Further Reading 249 5. Creating Abundance 102 Image Credits 251 How to see and access resources we don’t have Appendix 253 Thanks and Acknowledgments 263 6. Activating Emotions 124 Index 267 How to fuel tenacity on the journey 7. The Fertile Zero 146 Learning from people who succeeded with next to nothing vii