How to Identify Strategy Bottlenecks

Ever feel like everything’s on fire and you’re not sure which fire to fight first? Good news: there's a framework for that... Great CEOs don’t just react to chaos... ...they know how to identify the biggest bottleneck in the business and act decisively to unblock it. In other words, they know how to identify and act upon the company’s “Right Next Thing” (or RNT). The RNT is the most important thing the business needs to do right now to move forward, and identifying it is the most critical job of any CEO. Here’s our playbook for finding your company’s “Right Next Thing”… 1️⃣ Step 1: Reflect on the Past Look back over the last 90 days and make two lists where you write down: - What am I proud of? - Where do I have regrets? Pride motivates us to move forward. Regrets teach us humility and highlight areas that need fixing. 2️⃣ Step 2: Assess the Present Now, shift to the present and ask yourself: - Where do I feel confident? - Where do I feel a sense of lack? For example, maybe you feel confident in your sales team but recognize a lack of administrative support. In this case, you would lack Sales Admins. 3️⃣ Step 3: Envision the Future Next, look ahead 90 days and write down: - What excites me? - What worries me? Excitement signals opportunities you should explore. Worries reveal potential pitfalls to mitigate. Both reveal potential RNTs. 4️⃣ Step 4: Identify the RN Now comes the magic. Once you have taken inventory of where your company is today, review all three lists and ask: "What must happen in the next 90 days to increase pride, confidence, and excitement...while reducing regret, lack, and worry?" Brainstorm 5 – 7 possible initiatives, then sequence them based on potential impact. The top item? That’s your RNT. 5️⃣ Step 5: Take Action (Then Get Out of the Way!) Remember, your job as the CEO is to DETERMINE your company’s Right Next Thing, not execute the company’s Right Next Thing. So, commit to the top initiative — your RNT — and empower your team to execute. Because once you figure out what to do next, your next challenge is resisting the urge to do it all yourself. 😀 P.S. You just read one of the most popular posts from The Accidental MBA, my free newsletter for bootstrapped business owners. If this one helped you think differently about leading your team… …just imagine what a fresh tip like this, every week, could do for your business. That’s why founders, CEOs, and bootstrapped business owners call it their favorite 2-minute read of the week. If you want in, sign up now…before life distracts you: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gy3h5sG7

Strategy is derived from the bottleneck. Strategy must "bust" the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the constraint that limits progress toward the aspiration of the organization. The bottleneck can be thought of as a barrier, obstruction, limitation, impediment, obstacle, or hindrance; it doesn’t matter the word you use or the image in your head. Technically, the bottleneck is the 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁.* And unless the system constraint is reduced, the system does not change. The bottleneck can be of a wide range of character, as shown in the figure, including cultural issues. Culture is an organization's habits, the scripts people follow when responding to the internal and external world. True strategies are rarely just a laundry list of business plan choices like markets, products, and customers. A business plan is not a strategy in most cases. So, if the cultural issue is too much adherence and obedience to leadership with no pushback or fight, the leader’s strategy might revolve around promoting the few people who do push back, bringing in people from the outside who do have fight in them, or using retreats or other formats to show people the kind of fight she is looking for. If the cultural issue is that the organization accepts low-quality, superficial work presented in long PowerPoint presentations filled with forecasts, lists of initiatives, and talk of transformations and other buzzwords, then her strategy may revolve around creating new standards—either by working with the few people who can do it internally, or bringing in some help—and then ramping up the firing of people who do no show the aptitude or inclination to meet the new standards. If the bottleneck is that the product line and operations have become way too complicated, with too many product platforms and SKUs, convoluted ways of making these products, and special cuts and special treatment for customers who may no longer deserve them, then the strategy would be completely different. If the bottleneck to achieving the organization's aspiration is related to business model issues, like a declining market, new competition, or new opportunities, the strategy would, again, be different. Bottleneck dictates strategy, and aspiration dictates bottleneck. -------------------- * The Theory of Constraints uses the term bottleneck for other types of constraints, but the concept of system constraint is the same in the Emergent Approach to Strategy and the Theory of Constraints. #EmergentApproach #PeterCompo #AdaptiveStrategy #EmergentStrategy #StrategyDesign

90% of startups don’t fail because of: Bad marketing, a weak team, or even a poor product. They fail because they lack a repeatable decision-making process. Here’s the framework I use to make better, faster decisions in business. I call it “The Iteration Loop.” It’s a structured way to identify what’s working, what’s broken, and what to do next, without getting stuck in endless guesswork. It gives you a systematic way to eliminate bottlenecks, optimize execution, and scale with clarity. Here are the 6 phases: 1. Bottleneck Identification 2. Clarifying the Goal 3. Solution Brainstorming 4. Focused Execution 5. Performance Review 6. Iterate & Improve 1️⃣ Bottleneck Identification Before you can fix anything, you need to identify the real problem. Most entrepreneurs spin their wheels solving the wrong issues because they never dig deep enough. To get clarity, ask: + What's the biggest constraint stopping growth right now? + What metric, if doubled, would create the biggest impact? + What’s preventing us from getting there? If you don’t identify the root problem, every solution you apply will be wasted effort. 2️⃣ Clarifying the Goal Once you know the problem, define the exact outcome you’re solving for. I use a simple Three-Part Goal Formula: 1. What are we trying to achieve? 2. By when? 3. What constraints do we have? Vague goals lead to vague actions. Precision forces progress. 3️⃣ Solution Brainstorming Now, generate every possible solution—without filtering. Most people limit themselves to their existing knowledge, which is why they get stuck. Instead, ask: “If there were no rules, what would I do?” This opens up better, faster, and often simpler solutions you wouldn’t have otherwise considered. 4️⃣ Focused Execution Don’t test everything at once—test one variable at a time. Most teams waste months by making too many changes at once, leading to messy, inconclusive results. Instead, break it down: 1. Test one key assumption. 2. Measure one KPI that proves or disproves it. 3. Execute for a set period, then review. 4. Speed matters. Complexity kills momentum. 5️⃣ Performance Review Your data isn’t just numbers—it’s feedback on your decision-making process. Your job is to analyze: + Did the solution work? + Why or why not? + What does this tell us about our business? Every test refines your ability to make better future decisions. 6️⃣ Iterate & Improve Most companies don’t fail from making the wrong move—they fail from making no moves at all. The only way to win long-term is to keep iterating. Instead of fearing failure, build a culture that rewards learning. Failure + Reflection = Progress. If you aren’t improving your decision-making process, your business will eventually hit a ceiling. That’s why I built The Iteration Loop—so every problem becomes an opportunity for better, faster execution. P.S. If you want the scaling roadmap I used to scale 3 businesses to $100M and beyond, you can get it for free from the link in my profile.