A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It's Everyone's Business Hardcover – January 20, 2015

This is a very, very, very good book. First it is empathetic. Barden and Morgan show they understand your pain. They acknowledge that changing the status quo -- be that denting the world, birthing your dream or simply just doing your job ain't easy. The brilliance of this book is that it turns your enemies -- be they your own demons and excuses, or more practical barriers -- into your allies. Second, it is highly practical. The authors -- through examples and thoughtful frameworks -- let you identify your constraints and imagine how they can become success factors. Thirdly, it is a vibrant and fast-paced read. I bought it as a business book, but it doesn't read it like one, and I started seeing ways the philosophy of taking constraints as inspiration applies to living life rather than just my business life. A book both to read, and to keep at hand as a manual.

I loved this book, and the frameworks within it for thinking through constraints in an optimistic and pragmatic way. Highly recommend!

The constraints referred to by Morgan and Barden are the limitations that affect a business’s ability to perform. I have not yet come across a business that is free of constraints of some sort: legislation that hampers, insufficient funding, inadequate staff expertise, and any number of others.The title of this book is arresting: “A Beautiful Constraint”. Ponder that for a moment.Dan Wieden of Wieden+Kennedy was given a “gift” by Phil Knight, founder of Nike. The gift was the constraint that came with the offer to take charge of Nike’s marketing. Knight did not want anything “that looked or felt or smelled like advertising”. As a competitive runner, he wanted a real relationship with the athletes who would use his product. Wieden’s agency was not to run the same ad twice— “you wouldn't write the same letter to a friend two weeks in a row, so why would you show them the same ad?” There was to be no use of models in the adverts, none at all.The “gift” had the effect of denying Wieden+Kennedy the ability to do what they knew as successful advertising. The result was one of the world’s most admired and successful communications campaigns.Our instinctive response to constraints is to view them as restrictions. There is good reason to see some as necessary, beneficial, and to be embraced.Todd Batty, Creative Director of video game giant Electronic Arts, notes that the absence of any constraints on video game designers, does not provide an infinite range of possibilities, but the opposite: “a predictable sameness”.In a very different field, comedian Jerry Seinfeld's approach is to deny himself the easy source of laughs, such as sex or swearing. Instead, his comedy is about the humdrum minutiae of life. This approach has earned him $ 30 million a year.Constraints can be grouped into “foundation, resource, time, and method”.“Foundation” constraints are those that deny the business an essential for success. An example is the lack of a physical restaurant for a would-be restaurateur, which resulted in the growth of the food-cart industry.A “Resource” constraint is the common lack of budget, people, and knowledge or expertise.Hannah Jones, VP of Corporate Responsibility at Nike at the time, faced the almost impossible task of enforcing the use of protective facemasks to prevent breathing in glue fumes in their factories. She challenged the constraining assumption that glue fumes have to be toxic, and forced Nike designers to make a nontoxic glue. The result was not only a safer but also better performing product.“Time” was a huge constraint on the ambitious “Sky City” building in Changsha, China. It was to be twice the height of the Empire State Building with 202 floors, making it the tallest skyscraper in the world. It was to be built in just 90 days! The constraint forced the pre-fabrication of the floors elsewhere, which were then assembled on-site.The constraint of “Method” is commonly the result of trying to address today’s demands with yesterday’s methods. What was appropriate then, is not necessarily appropriate now, but previous success blinds one to what could create success tomorrow.The constraint faced by the Audi R10 racing-car development team, was how to win the Le Mans if their car could go no faster than anyone else’s. This methodological constraint resulted in using diesel technology in their racing cars for the first time. The answer was fuel efficiency without being able to go faster. Audi could win Le Mans with a car that was not faster, but needed fewer pit stops. The R10 TDI took first place at Le Mans for the next three years.The authors do more than simply point out the creative value of a constraint – they offer some valuable techniques that are immediately useable. A key part of the solution is the “Propelling Question”. This type of question is not merely a difficult question such as how to double turnover in two years.“How we frame the question is critical to making a constraint beautiful because it forces us to think and behave in a different way”, the authors explain. Propelling Questions must contain a “directional tension” that retains the “can” while looking for the “if”. Audi’s question was “How can we win the Le Mans if our car can go no faster than anyone else’s?”There is adequate research to suggest that when people are stressed, they are more likely to stick to addressing problems as they always have. Try addressing your constraint with this Propelling Question format.The authors identify three generic reactions to constraints.The first group the “Victims” who lower their ambition when faced with a constraint. Since I cannot achieve what I desire because of the constraint, I will settle for less.The second group the “Neutralizers” refuse to lower the ambition but find an alternative way to deliver the ambition. If I cannot double turnover in two years, I will exit this business and invest elsewhere.The third group, the “Transformers” who finds a way to use a constraint as an opportunity, and even heighten their ambition in the process.Our habitual ways of responding to constraints, prevent us from finding new ways to solve new problems. If the first step to correcting this is acknowledging the problem, the second is finding effective remedies.Start with this book. It is a practical book, accessible and also entertaining,*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works.

Found this awesome book while checking for recent publications in my field, the Theory of Constraints. The authors spend a few paragraphs distancing their definition of a constraint from that used in TOC. But they missed the slightly deeper usage of "constraint" in TOC; a limitation often resulting from internal or external sources -- often policies, measurements and behaviors. Which happens to be the same usage the authors champion in the rest of their book. Oh well.So I find myself happily recommending the book to clients, explaining why some of page 6 is in error, using it as a springboard to talk about systematic change, then using TOC tools to make it happen. Cool!

I completely agree with the reviewers who have said that there is no padding here. This is 250+ pages of meaty ideas, insights, examples and eminently doable ways of acting on those insights and ideas. You know it's good when people can't wait to start using it, and the concepts become part of our day-to-day lexicon for talking about exciting problems. I love that I find myself seeking out potentially transformative constraints, and double-checking that I'm not copping out by just negotiating with workarounds.However, if the authors had chosen to pad it out a little, to 500 or 1,000 pages of solid hardback, maybe I wouldn't have had to buy 4 more copies for my light-fingered deskmates. (Although, in seriousness, I was only too happy to buy more copies to share around - something I definitely wouldn't do, if I hadn't already seen that they were going to be put to use.)All I need now is a little mobile companion piece on kindle, for top-up reading on the plane, or as quick-reference recipe cards when the opportunity strikes!

Adds to my existing Lean practice, already on my second time through this book. A worthy addition to my regular book rotation. Found the chapter "Ask Propelling Questions" useful. Discussions on uncomfortable questions, the power of bold ambitions with serious constraints, and the reward of unreasonableness got my wheels turning. But this is just part of a well articulated treatise on why limitations can be the source of our greatest achievements .This book is a font of knowledge backed up with real examples to illustrate various points. Contains practical steps to move organizations towards having a transformation culture and away from the status quo. Didn't agree with everything that was said but made me question some of my own thinking. A great read.