I once attended a presentation that Eli Goldratt gave for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. We were seated in an auditorium, listening as Goldratt paced back and forth on the stage, puffing on his cigar, gesturing for effect, and occasionally cursing for emphasis. The author of The Goal (North River Press, 2014 fourth edition) and creator of OPT (optimized production technology) was describing what later became known as the Theory of Constraints (TOC).

At the time, identifying with Alex Rogo (protagonist of The Goal), I listened intently, hoping for some wisdom. I’d recently moved into a manufacturing management role, and we were applying resources everywhere to dig out of an ugly past-due condition. Goldratt’s message: Identify the bottleneck, focus problem-solving on it until it’s no longer the bottleneck—and then repeat with the next bottleneck.

The message resonated with me, but others in the audience who perhaps had more engineering experience questioned the complexity of the requirements to successfully deploy OPT software. One attendee commented, “The whole process as you describe it just seems too difficult.”

In response, Goldratt marched to center stage and responded, “If this seems too hard, then think harder.”

Over the years, that message has stuck with me. New learning is difficult and usually involves an equal or greater amount of unlearning. We’re captives to our predispositions. This, I think, was the situation for the unfortunate engineer who posed the “difficulty” objection to Goldratt.

While my lean and TOC friends may be seen as worshiping at different altars, there’s a great deal of commonality in their concepts and objectives—and a great deal to learn about each to gain the depth of understanding we see at high-performing “everybody every day” organizations. These excellent companies have embraced the complexity of change for the better, breaking it down to solvable components—purpose, values, strategy, organization, policy, concepts, methods, roles, social norms, and behaviors—rather than seeking silver-bullet solutions that require little personal commitment. The winning organizations are simply thinking harder.

How about you? Are you thinking hard?

Published in Bruce Hamilton’s Old Lean Dude blog.