Look at Life’s ‘Constraints’ sportingly!

A brilliant management philosophy was expounded by Eliyahu Goldratt, in his bestseller book ‘The Goal’ in the year 1984. He lucidly explains the ‘Theory of Constraints’ by weaving a story about a professor and his student, who is grappling to make his factory prosper amidst a set of constraints. He hammers all the technical aspects of optimization within the given constraints with ease and his work serves as a hand book for improving the efficiencies in all types of industries.

‘Constraint’ is anything that prevents a system from achieving its goal. The system could be a company, department, team or individual, pursuing goals in professional and personal lives. It can be external to the system or internal within a system. Let us pick up the example of Tennis as a sport. The players have to sweat it out and excel in their performance within a set of external and internal constraints. The rules, regulations, code of ethics, uncertainties in the decision making of the referees, crowd’s applause, noise levels, ambient temperature, lighting conditions and so on constitutes the external constraints.

The player’s stamina, shot selection, eyesight, concentration levels, physical fitness and so on represent the constraints of the internal variety. Champions always having a way of accepting these constraints and optimizing their performance, by governing the constraints on a real time basis. That is the hallmark of true champions, who make the sport look so easy.

The above analogy is applicable to us also, as we keep playing many roles in our professional and personal lives to achieve our goals. In professional projects, we are always working within the constraints of time, resources and employee strength. But, in the thick of things, sometimes, we get so lost in the process, that we totally forget that life is after all, a sport with a unique set of external and internal constraints. We tend to get distracted by these constraints so much, that we start working towards eliminating them, instead of focusing on our skills to play within them. In that sense, Constraints can also be termed as ‘Necessary evil’.

The need of the hour is to excel in the ultimate sport called ‘Life’ and make living look so easy like true champions. Let us identify, accept our constraints and innovatively optimize our efforts within those constraints, sportingly. Never get into the mode of eliminating the constraints, which is next to impossible.