Constraints to the growth of a business are limited by it’s environment.

Constraints to the development of a business lie within it.

How people limit their own creativity

In his ground breaking book Lateral Thinking, Edward de Bono wrote, "The mind is good at establishing concept patterns but not good at restructuring them to bring them up to date".

It is generally difficult for us to acknowledge but we are the principal obstruction to our own development. We do this in many ways.

• We credit what constraints we are aware of to external sources. Usually assigning them to a higher authority such as the boss or the government. This is convenient as it relieves us of the responsibility for them. It does not remove them however.
• Another way is to use “obviously” when referring to an assertion whose truth we are unwilling to question.

We also use more subtle means.

• It is common to unconsciously assume that familiar technology must be required for a particular type of job. 
• Sometimes we impose a limited frame of reference on the problem. Thinking Cradle to Grave rather than Cradle to Cradle limits our range of solutions.

Knowing our creativity is shackled by self-imposed constraints is not enough to set it free. We must remove the obstructions at the outset of our problem solving process.

Idealised re-design makes the assumption that the system to be planned for was destroyed last night, but it’s environment remains intact. This enables brainstorming without limits and produces a re-design of the system that the designers would have right now if they were free to have anything.

Adapted from the writings of Dr Russell Ackoff.