What is a Beautiful Constraint?

I started my career reading Goldratt and his Theory of Constraints, which includes exploiting and elevating a constrating. Instead, A Beautiful Constraint’s authors want to leverage these limitations toward progress positively. Barden and Morgan view constraints as an opportunity and use them as a stimulus to see a new or better way of achieving an ambition. Willy Donaldson and I unpack five of their seven process steps of making constraints beautiful through mindset, method, and motivation.

Episode Highlights

• the definition of a constraint
• why the authors wrote this book
• reasons to and not to read the book
• the relationship between ambition and constraints
• victims, neutralizers, and transformers
• Path Dependence and The Calf Path
• the Audi question and propelling questions
• can-if thinking
• resources vs. resourceful thinking
• The Curse of Resources
• how Siskel & Ebert might rate the book
• Willy’s second book, Estimated Time of Departure
• books mentioned: The Coming Wave and Upstream

Ten years from now, we would like to search Google for a definition of constraint and see it include this: a limitation or defining parameter, often the stimulus to find a better way of doing something.

Morgan, Adam; Barden, Mark. A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It’s Everyone’s Business (p. 10). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Who Is Willy Donaldson?

While I consider Willy Donaldson a friend, he also has over 35 years of experience as a Board member and President, has been CEO of eight companies, and has over 30 years of experience in higher education. Willy is the Founder and President of Strategic Venture Planning, a management consulting firm that assists boards, investors, and senior management teams in maximizing results.

He is the Assistant Professor in Management at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. He teaches Strategic Management, Operations Management, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Systems Thinking. Willy is the Director of the CNU Small Business Institute and the Biotechnology and Management Program.

My conversation with Willy on his book Simple_Complexity is the most downloaded episode in our podcast catalog, and I do not expect that to change in the foreseeable future. He’s also appeared on two of my favorite podcasts, The Soul of Enterprise and Red Team Thinking.

Episode Pairings