The Releasing Power of Constraints

How much is enough to get a great idea going?

The race to be entrepreneurial in our organizations is much like our New Year’s race to improve our personal lives. We see the need for change and then gather all of our great ideas to strategize a way forward.  The possibilities inspire us.

Yet – after the meeting, after the planning and initial buzz, nothing much happens.

In the context of businesses and organizations, whether profit or not for profit - the broad research on entrepreneurial starts (which includes intrapreneurs – entrepreneurs within an established organization trying to launch a new project), indicates they fail more often than not…to the tune of 70-90%.  

The usual suspect is resources:

• Not enough people  
•  Insufficient funds 
•  Lack of organizational support. 

Can I suggest a different angle on this?  

You may be failing at new ideas because you have TOO MANY RESOURCES.

Those with excess or even sufficient resources tend to invest primarily in the familiar.  In part that is to maintain the ‘formula’ that has brought them their current resource success.  Don’t mess with success. So, they may tweak at the edges and call it innovation, but it’s primarily maintenance of the goose that laid their golden egg. Research reveals that compared to resource-rich organizations, entrepreneurs and organizations with truly entrepreneurial practices are innovative in part because of their resource constraints.  

How can that be? 

Counterintuitively, constraints release you because:

• You must now focus on existing advantages.  What have you got in your hand right now without any further investment?  What are you great at?
• They move you to become truly experimental.  Think about the thinking that emerges when you are asking the question: “How could we get this done without any money or other resources? 
•  Rather than focusing energy on maintaining & resourcing the status quo, you are freed up to think about unmet needs, areas your current resources don’t address. 
•  It forces you to take a new look at your knowledge and resource base, and in so doing opens your eyes to new opportunities.

Your idea here

If you have a vision for something, but perhaps not the resources, will that stop you?  

Resource constraints may be the best thing that has ever happened to you.

Harv Matchullis

Visiontracks Facilitation & Coaching

harvey@visiontracks.ca