Every system only has one to a few constraints that keep it from performing better. Sometimes this is due to an outdated or incorrect policy. Sometimes it’s due to a limited resource. Identifying and addressing the constraint in a system is the only way to meaningfully improve its performance.
Several years ago I had the (not unique, I’m sure) realization that human attention is often the constraint in many systems. Evidence for this being true is the fact that many of the most valuable businesses in the world today – Facebook, Google, Netflix, just to name a few – are valuable precisely because they’ve become highly effective in capturing, directing, and monetizing people’s attention.
Within an organization, often times the constraint is management attention: from the CEO, the executive team, the board, etc. How the CEO in particular manages her attention is one of the biggest – though far from the only – determinants of success.
I read somewhere recently that “the biggest barrier to scale at a startup isn’t capital, it’s the time & attention to design and run experiments testing the core tenets of the business.” I don’t know if I’d necessarily word it exactly like that, but I think it’s close.