On Pull the Chute, Rajesh Nagjee tells hosts Jeff Sesol and Janna Landry why he looks for a business's bottleneck before reworking its strategy.

In this episode he explains why every system has one constraint, how fear and regret steer a CEO's decisions, and why replacing "should" and "must" with "works" gets a team moving.

What This Episode Covers

• Why every system has a constraint

• Why the CEO's real output is consensus

• Why CEOs struggle between short-term survival and long-term growth

• How fear and regret sabotage decision-making

• Why "should" and "must" create pressure, and "works" create movement

• Why coaching is about questions more than answers

• Parking the past, then choosing where to stand

Key Ideas From The Conversation

Why does every business have a constraint? "Every system has a weakest link. Every system has a constraint. Unless you find it, the throughput, the output, and the profitability are not going to go up." Rajesh finds it through turbulence: "Bottleneck and turbulence go together."

Why do CEOs struggle between short-term survival and long-term growth? "They are compelled to focus on the short-term survival, and they're also compelled to focus on long-term growth. Unfortunately, the short-term survival cash flow pressures take over."

How do fear and regret affect a CEO's decisions? Rajesh draws three circles for past, present, and future. He used to try to get people to let go of the past. "When I created this visual, then I just invite them to park things. They're not letting go of the past. They just park it. Now they have freedom to move to the other place."

What is the difference between "should" and "works"? Rajesh asks clients to "confiscate three words. Should, must, and have to," and trade them for one: works. "I'm getting them to move out of morality into workability, and workability is what physics is all about."