Thalasar Ventures

The Theory of Constraints

The theory of thinking was propagated by Eliyahu Goldratt in one of his book The Goal as “the theory of constraints.” Having read and gone through several times, I will try to pen down the way I have understood. It is one of the finest concepts.

This theory states that between you and anything you want to accomplish in life there is a constraint, limiting factor or an impediment that determines how fast you get to where you want to go.

For example, if you are driving down a freeway and traffic construction is narrowing all the vehicles into a single lane, this bottleneck or choke up point becomes the constraint for the person who drives his vehicle & also determines how fast you will negotiate to get to your destination. The speed at which you pass through this bottleneck will largely determine the speed of your entire journey.

In accomplishing any major accomplishments, there is always a constraint or a bottleneck which determines how well you negotiate & get through as well. Your job is to identify it accurately and then focus all of your energies on alleviating that key constraint. Your ability to remove this bottleneck or deal with this limiting factor can help you to move ahead faster than perhaps any other steps you can take.

The 80 /20 rule applies to the constraints between you and your goals. This rule clearly states that 80 percent of your constraints lie within yourself. Only 20 percent of your constraints will be outside of yourself, contained in other people, situations. To put it in other words, it is you personally who is usually the major roadblock that is setting the pace at which you achieve any goal that you set for yourself.

For most of us, this is extremely hard to accept. But successful people are more concerned with what is right rather than who is right. Successful people are more concerned with the truth of the situation and what they can do to solve the problems, than they are with protecting their egos.

Thus, most of the obstacles which you face while achieving your goals are mental. They are psychological and emotional in character. They are within yourself rather than within the situation around you. And it is with these mental obstacles that you must begin if you want to achieve everything that is possible for you.

The author of this write up is Iyer Subramanian. Presently, attached to Employers’ Federation of India.