At one point everything felt stuck in my business.
We were all really busy but somehow, things weren't moving forward at a pace that reflected our efforts.
In an attempt to solve this, I added more systems, more people, and we doubled our efforts.
And nothing changed!
One day as I was journaling (as I often do and I highly recommend you do too) it hit me ...
I was the bottleneck.
I always knew this on some level but journaling about my problems helped me articulate this very important insight so my conscious mind could take redemptive action.
Like most founders I spent a lot of time looking for bottlenecks in the business.
I'd look for capacity issues, problems with information flow, and a ton of other external stuff.
But the answer was staring me in the face ... every time I looked in the mirror.
My reluctance to let go of the things and delegate work to a team I'd worked hard to train, was the constraint.
Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself (to test if you're the bottleneck)
- Which tasks/projects/responsibilities am I not delegating (that I would be advising my client to delegate if they were in my shoes)?
- Which processes do I run in my head and haven't documented (so my team can execute on them)?
- Which activities should I now be delegating to my team (now that I've moved from 'founder' to 'business owner')?
The bottlenecks are almost always due to a lack of clarity.
And more resources rarely fix these problems.
The bottleneck/constraint is often the solution (not the problem).
A great book to check out is called "The Theory of Constraints" by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
What's the one bottleneck in your business right now that you've been treating as a circumstance instead of a signal?
Hit reply and let me know.
Ciao for now,
Ash
