The Assembly Line Lesson

Henry Ford watched his skilled workers repeatedly walk back and forth, gathering parts for assembly. Everyone said faster workers were the key to better production.

But Ford saw something different.

The best worker in the world can't outperform a poor parts delivery system. The workers weren't the constraint – their movement was. When Ford brought the parts to the workers instead, productivity soared.

Here's the pattern: Systems aren't limited by capability, but by constraints.

We keep hiring faster runners, when we should be shortening the track.

You see this everywhere: Teams adding more developers while ignored communication bottlenecks kill productivity. Businesses buying faster computers while slow database queries remain unfixed. Writers upgrading their tools while their cluttered workspace forces constant context switching.

The breakthrough comes when you stop asking "How do we improve performance?" and start asking "What's actually holding us back?"

Look for the constraint. That's where the leverage is.