Where's your Herbie?
The forest was still, the air sharp with morning cold as the Boy Scouts set out on their hike. Boots crunched over frost-tipped leaves. Breath rose like smoke. The strongest boys charged ahead, their energy spilling into laughter and competition. They raced, leapt over roots, vanished around bends.
But one boy fell behind.
Herbie.
He was smaller than the rest, his shoulders hunched beneath a pack far too heavy for his frame. A week’s worth of supplies dragged at him. With every step, he slipped further back, quietly, stubbornly, until he became a distant figure on the trail.
Up front, the leaders didn’t notice at first. They were focused on progress. On pace. But eventually, the entire group had to stop. Wait. Again and again. The harder the front pushed, the more fractured the line became. Herbie was not just slowing himself down. He was slowing everyone.
Then the scout leader did something unexpected.
He called Herbie forward. Not to shame him. Not to fix him. To see him.
He moved Herbie to the very front of the line, and redistributed the weight from his pack across the others. What happened next was quiet, but powerful. The group began to move, not in bursts, not in stops and starts, but as one. Steady. Aligned. Whole.
Herbie, once the drag on the system, became the rhythm of its progress.
This story, from The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt, illustrates a fundamental truth most leaders ignore:
Every system has a constraint. Until you address it, no amount of effort elsewhere will change your results.
Goldratt built his Theory of Constraints by studying factories.
Picture five workstations, each responsible for one step in production. Four machines run at 200 units per hour. One machine can only handle 100. The entire system, no matter how well-oiled the rest may be, is now capped at 100 units per hour.
Worse, if the faster machines keep producing, inventory piles up between stages. Work appears to be happening—machines are humming, people are busy—but nothing of real value moves through the system. It is a beautifully busy illusion.
Now look up from the factory floor.
Think about your business. Your team. Your calendar. Your leadership. Your personal life.
You may have built brilliant systems, hired exceptional talent, and invested in tools. But despite everything in place, you're still not operating at the level you know is possible. You are reacting instead of directing. You are working longer, not smarter.
Something is stuck.
Where is your Herbie?
In a service business, the constraint might be onboarding.
In a team, it might be unclear expectations or unresolved tension.
In leadership, it might be your reluctance to delegate, your craving for control, or your fear of saying no.
You may have optimized your sleep, refined your calendar, even hired a coach. But if the bottleneck is your tolerance for uncomfortable introspection, no system will carry you past it.
The lie we tell ourselves is that more speed will fix stuckness.
More meetings.
More tools.
More hiring.
But what if the path forward is not found by going faster, but by going through the bottleneck?
This is the reflection point where ancient wisdom meets operational clarity.
"To gain knowledge, one adds. To gain wisdom, one subtracts." - Lao Tzu
In Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, progress does not come through grand reinvention, but by removing friction at the source.
Tiny shifts.
Unseen constraints.
Relentless attention to what no longer serves.
This is the heart of constraint-based thinking.
Not doing more. Doing what matters.
Not pushing harder. Removing what holds you back.
Not capacity, but clarity.
Not scale, but precision.
Not acceleration, but alignment.
Goldratt’s five-step method applies far beyond manufacturing. It is a lens for clarity.
Identify the constraint – What is truly slowing things down?
Exploit the constraint – Maximize its output. Keep Herbie moving.
Subordinate everything else – Align every process around the constraint.
Elevate the constraint – If it still limits you, invest to expand capacity.
Repeat – Constraints evolve. So must your focus.
This is not a productivity hack.
It is a mindset of essentialism.
A discipline of strategic subtraction.
Why this matters
Because time is non-renewable.
Because wasted energy does not regenerate.
Because complexity drains, and clarity scales.
When you find and face the real constraint, three things happen:
Momentum returns – You stop chasing symptoms and start creating flow.
Decisions get sharper – You know what matters and what is noise.
Growth compounds – You stop rebuilding and start scaling what works.
A practical lens for today:
Open your calendar. Look at your team. Review your priorities.
Ask: What is the one point that consistently slows things down? Then ask: Am I treating it as the constraint, or am I pretending it does not exist?
Once you find it, bring it to the front. Redistribute the weight. Align the system.
Progress does not come from speed.
It comes from clarity.
From noticing friction. From subtracting what no longer belongs.
That is wisdom. That is Kaizen.
The slowest hiker always shows you the truth.
If you want to go far, walk with him.
