A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why Its Everyones Business

HOW DO YOU TURN YOUR LIMITATIONS INTO OPPORTUNITIES?

Drawing inspiration from cases in fields as diverse aseducation, automobile engineering, supply–chain management,agriculture and breakthrough marketing campaigns, A BeautifulConstraint provides simple and practical tools to help almostanyone use constraints as a source of inspiration rather thanasphyxiation. With clearly signalled chapter summaries allowing thetime–constrained reader to grasp the whole book in 21 minutes, thisis an easily digestible guidebook for all of us who need to makemore from less.

"A Beautiful Constraint is a book you can arm–wrestlewith. Come at it with a traditional mindset and it will come rightback at you with forceful arguments that will stimulate yourthinking. The book offers us all a beguilingly simple way oflooking at new approaches to grow and prosper in a new world orderwhere the overriding preoccupation of business is scarcity ofresource in all its forms. Read it and be inspired."
Keith Weed, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer,Unilever

"I′m a huge believer in the power of constraint. Less is oftenbetter. This book beautifully explores the question of how toapproach constraints, both as individuals and as organizations andprovides pragmatic frameworks for how to implement in every daylife. In the end, this is not a business book, it is essentialreading for personal happiness and entrepreneurship."
Fabian Pfortmüller, Co–Founder, Holstee

"Through its compelling real world examples and observations,A Beautiful Constraint has encouraged me to challengetime–worn assumptions, and enlightened me to the concept of askingtough propelling questions to both our creative teams andour sales and marketing organization. As an added bonus, ABC hasbeen assembled in an easy–to–digest format perfect for shortattention span readers like me."
Scott Rohde, SVP Product Development, Sony PlayStation WorldwideStudios America

"An amazing book. A well–written, lucid survey of how businessessucceed by figuring out how to use their limitations. A businessbook that doesn′t read like one. I think these guys nailedit."
Dan Wieden, Co–Founder & Chairman, Wieden + Kennedy

"Adam and Mark have not only thought deeply about how to turnlemons into lemonade, they′ve also thought about how to make thewealth of ideas in their book easy to digest and use."
Nancy Duarte, CEO, Duarte, Inc.

"I started Samuel Adams in 1984 on a shoestring, but I neverfelt constrained. I felt focused and clear about every decision. Webootstrapped and innovated to compensate for lack of financialresources, and that creative culture serves us well even now, 30years later. A Beautiful Constraint is a great addition tothe entrepreneur′s bookshelf. The antithesis of the ill–fated ′burnrate′ calculations used by VCs during the dot com boom, the lessonsin A Beautiful Constraint give the reader the tools to staytrue to the company′s core values and the confidence to letconstraints be a powerful ally."
Jim Koch, Chairman & Founder, The Boston BeerCompany

The beauty in constraint, and why it matters

1. Victim, Neutralizer, & Transformer 16

Our starting relationship with constraints

2. Break Path Dependence 34

The behaviors and practices that stop us seeing opportunity inconstraint

3. Ask Propelling Questions 56

How to frame the constraint to force breakthrough

4. Can–If 78

How to find solutions to constraint–driven problems

5. Creating Abundance 102

How to see and access resources we don t have

6. Activating Emotions 124

How to fuel tenacity on the journey

7. The Fertile Zero 146

Learning from people who succeeded with next to nothing

8. Constraint–Driven Cultures 172

How big companies have learned to love constraints

9. Scarcity and Abundance 194

Why this capability is so important to all of us today

10. Making Constraints Beautiful 208

How to use the ABC approach

11. Leadership & The Future of Constraints 224

The opportunity for progress

Notes and Sources 235

Bibliography and Further Reading 249

Image Credits 251

Appendix 253

Thanks and Acknowledgments 263

Index 267

ADAM MORGAN is the author of Eating The Big Fish: HowChallenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, theinternational bestseller that introduced the concept of challengerbrands to the world of marketing. His ideas have been widely citedas a key influence by a new generation of successful entrepreneursand business leaders around the world. He is founder of eatbigfish,a renowned marketing consultancy that works with clients to developtheir own breakthrough strategies, from Helsinki to Hanoi.

MARK BARDEN runs the west coast business for eatbigfishin the US. Over his career he′s won the Platinum Award for directresponse marketing, taken a dot com public, warmed up a crowd forEllen De Generes, and played a Buddhist monk in a Kleenexcommercial. His advice on how to create breakthrough thinking withoutsize results is much sought after. He is a popular speaker,world class facilitator and occasional coach.