How Elon Musk removes 52 Constraints a year for Supersonic Business Growth

Why Elon Musk is so successful in Business Excellence is that he consistently identifies the #1 Constraint of the Week in each of his businesses, and rolls up his sleeves to remove it himself.

He allocates his days across his businesses — through the SolarCity years, it was two days at Tesla, two at SolarCity and one at SpaceX. He goes personally to wherever the #1 constraint sits, bypassing layers to speak directly to the engineers who understand it. Over a year, that is more than fifty of the biggest problems in each business, removed by the founder himself.

Notice too that his titles are not only CEO. He is Product Architect at Tesla and Chief Engineer at SpaceX. Where he means to work with his sleeves rolled up, he takes an engineering title, not a governance one.

This gives him two things at once — supersonic growth in each business, and a depth of understanding across every function that no amount of reporting could give him — strengthening him week-on-week in Craft Mastery. That depth, combined with his reading of market trends, is what gives him direction on innovation to win massively in the great game of business.

The constraint always moves. Remove this week's constraint and a new one immediately emerges — which is why it is a weekly rhythm and not a one-time exercise. The idea comes from Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. For something current and very readable, Reset: How to Change what's Not Working by Dan Heath is a better place to start.

Is this DLCM? This is Do Less to Create Massive Positive Impact in its purest form — one problem, chosen above all others, receiving the founder's full attention. And yet, Musk is famous for hundred-hour weeks and sleeping on the factory floor. It is leverage — going personally to the single point where his attention progresses the business the most. That is the part worth learning about and implementing. The hundred hours are not.

How do we find our own #1 Constraint of the Week?
Based on our learnings from Scaling Up and Metronomics, the secret is the 10-minute Daily Huddle, with four seemingly simple questions:

Q1. What is your Good News - personal or professional? - This strengthens the cohesiveness of the team and brings in nurturing into the culture, one day at a time.
Q2. What's your #1 thing to complete in the next 24 hours? - This uncovers the 10% that would create the 90% outcome in the day for each participating leader, creating aligned execution besides personal productivity.
​Q3. Where are you on your Daily Metric? (KPI for the #1 Individual Priority from the day before and your goal today) - This strengthens aligned execution.
Q4. Where are you Stuck in achieving your Top 5 Priorities for the Quarter? - This trend that emerges over the week helps uncover the #1 constraint of the week.

Listening to their leaders' responses to these four questions gives the CEO an intuitive feel for the #1 Constraint of the Week. It is then discussed in the Weekly Meeting — and resolved outside the meeting room, the same day, with the people in the trenches where the issue actually lives.

The Daily Huddle surfaces it. The founder removes it — strengthening themselves on Craft Mastery, leading their people on Business Excellence. That is the whole rhythm, week on week. It takes Leadership Depth to do this with belief, discipline and consistency. One rhythm that creates growth across all three Growth Levers.

Reflection Questions for Speed of Learning to Action for you to lead your business from good to great with joyous ease and grace:
Q1. How are you feeling after reading the article?
Q2. What is your One Insight that made the biggest difference to you?
Q3. What do you now understand that you hadn't considered before?
Q4. What is possible that wasn't possible before?
Q5. What is your One Question, the inquiry of which would most contribute to you?

Let's keep learning, contributing and making a massive positive impact to lead ourselves, our people and our businesses from good to great, realize our dreams and Have It All with joyous ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way.

Loving you,
j.