Recently I had a constraint placed around our teams development process. In my ideal world this constraint would not be there however it was and it was beyond my control to remove it. I was frustrated, how could this be forced on me - it was short sighted by the organization!
A day of ruminating on this and I was not in an ideal place. Frustrated and irritated I met with my manager and expressed my frustration. After discussing it a bit, he agreed that it wasn’t a great place to be and in his ideal world the constraint wouldn’t be there either. He then pointed out that constraints lead to innovation and that he would encourage me to innovate around this so it wouldn’t hold us back.
Thinking of the constraint as a driver for innovation totally changed how I looked at the situation. Next time you see a constraint that is out of your control look at it as a driver for innovation and you will be surprised how it can change how you feel about that constraint.
