The Bottleneck Is the Message

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