The Joy of Limits

Children are notorious for studying physics as they mature. At a very young age they learn the power of sound waves. They study gravity as they learn to walk. They will learn how much stress a bone can take before it breaks. And when they get a drivers license they combine the study of motion with the physiology of hand-eye coordination. If the child survives to adulthood they have a firm grasp on limits. In other words they know what can be done with the resources they have. What are the limits of the body? What are the limits of the machines they use? They also learn about public relations when their views on safety conflict with their parents.

In the business world it is equally important to test limits. A system designed to track your clients may work perfectly for the first 1000 clients. When you get the 1001st client is no time to find out that your systems can't handle the additional load. The limits might be the physical structures of trucks and file cabinet space but also includes human resources.

A business that is humming along with everyone working at their capacity is just waiting for trouble. If something else comes along, like a new customer, something has to give. It may be the quality of the work or the quality of your employees' personal life. In either case it is a downward trend that is difficult to stop. If you hire new employees when everyone is working at their capacity, who will train the trainees?

The other side of limits might be called constraints. Sure you can do practically anything with your resources but you need to limit to specific tasks. A sport with no boundaries or goals would not be much fun to play. Your corporate mission statement should set the boundaries. You can expand the mission as you get comfortable with the current limitations. Expanding into new territories and then backfilling is a stressful method of building a business. It is much better to expand by pushing from the inside out. You can't build a skyscraper from the top.

On the other hand only doing what you know stifles innovation. Do you stay within the limits you understand resulting in limited innovation or do you expand into unknown territory where you cannot calculate the risks. In other words what are the limits to risk taking? Only by knowing the skills and talents of your staff can you evaluate the risks of a new project. Thomas Edison was one of the most famous innovators of the last 150 years with more than 1000 patents. Most of his work was based on electricity and closely related fields. He did not come up with new ways of retailing such as Wal-Mart or more efficient ways of delivering packages like FedEx. He stayed focused on what he knew.

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