Find the "Herbie" in your change initiative.

Over-reaching is the biggest threat for many companies.The core business is at risk when too much change is happening at the same time.One executive recently told me, "Our biggest challenge is helping employees remember the names of all the change initiatives under way."

In the late 1970s, operations managers had a similar challenge.The risk of confusion, excess costs, and delays were added to by increasingly complex product lines.In the 1980s, methods such as total quality management, the Toyota Production System, and lean manufacturing helped many companies reduce waste and increase quality.The same methods helped increase speed and throughput by helping leaders manage interdependencies.

Agile software development and critical chain project management are some of the methods that have been adapted to professional work over the last few decades.Here, best practices for managing the flow of work, such as dedicating resources, increasing the visibility of customer expectations to everyone involved in doing the work and handing off tasks like relay racers, have led to dramatically shorter timelines.It is time to think about how we might apply these approaches to change management.

Eli Goldratt's "theory of constraints" is one of the top sellers on Amazon.In the face of variability and interdependencies, maximizing the activity of each part reduces the output of the system.Drawing on the analogy of a scout troop on a hike, Goldratt showed that only one factor determined how fast they would get to their destination: the speed of the slowest scout, a poor soul named "Herbie."They helped him lighten his load and put him at the front of the line.

The results of companies that apply the theory of constraints to their operations have been impressive.According to a 2003 meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Operations & Production, the median reduction in lead time is 75 percent, with revenue increases of 39 percent and due date performance improvements of 50 percent.

The theory of constraints shows that a business can only improve at a certain pace.Your business is more flexible than a factory.Chances are you are wrestling with interdependencies.Where there are interdependencies, your slowest resource determines how fast you will get to your future state.If you go faster than this, you will create confusion and waste, undermine your core business, or drift into fake change, which will incur all of the costs of implementation.To manage it like a hawk, you need to know your business's limit.The steps are based on Goldratt's Five Focusing Steps.

1.Take a look at the current constraints on your progress.Imagine being a new CEO and looking at your company for the first time.Do you know what function or resource most restricts our progress?Where would the smallest improvement have the biggest impact?Are you limited by how well field staff translate new offerings, new markets, or improved processes into results?Maybe your field organization is well-oiled, but you have a problem with one of the groups that generate innovations, such as product development, IT, or marketing.If your group is in high demand and stretched too thin, you may have top management or your best and brightest project leaders.

2.Rather than viewing your group as a weakness, think of it as the player on your team that has the ball.How well are you blocking to make sure the player gets to the end zone?Get everything else out of the way for the members of this group by agreeing on a few key priorities.Grouping changes into batches will lead to faster adoption with less disruption.

3.Over time, sequence priorities.We change too quickly based on timelines set by the groups.Try to introduce improvements in a logical order for the groups on the ground, at the fastest pace they can handle.New quota and territories should be announced before introducing a new method for lead generation.

4.The pace should be raised.Look for ways to increase your group's capacity by investing in systems, processes, tools, and training.Is it possible to simplify the work?Is it possible to eliminate hassles?Is it possible to add resources?The Herbie-group needs to be clear about the goal and quality standards, have the right inputs, and receive timely and accurate feedback so they can assess progress and course-correct quickly.

5.As your constraints change, pay attention.Don't expect to get rid of your constraints.The key is to know where you are.You can create a dashboard to help you stay on top of key initiatives.If teams on the ground lose confidence in their ability to deliver, they should speak up.Make priorities clear and cleanly if needed.

It's like taking off in an airplane.You don't want to go into a stall or dive to maximize the angle of ascent.Borrowing the operations world's practice of managing constraint resources would allow leaders to navigate between too much and too little change.They are able to launch improvements at the maximum rate the business can absorb by taking an integrated view.

A former lab fellow of Harvard University, Elizabeth Doty is the founder of Leadership Momentum, a consulting firm that focuses on the practical challenges of keeping organizational commitments.

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