We continue this series on hidden competition with “Examination: Surfacing Structural Constraints”
By Julius C. Dorsey Jr.
Recognition alone does not change performance. Once leadership accepts that unseen forces may be shaping outcomes, the work becomes more disciplined. Now the objective is to expose where ROI is being absorbed inside the system.
Structural constraints rarely look like problems. They appear as routines, safeguards, reporting conventions or long-standing assumptions. Often reasonable in origin and defensible in isolation, their cumulative effect can quietly limit throughput, slow decision velocity, or redirect resources without visible or sufficient debate.
Surfacing these constraints requires a deliberate shift in attention. Most executive reporting describes outcomes, such as revenue, margin, volume, engagement, conversion, growth. When these measures stall, attention usually moves to tactics or external conditions. Less often does it move to the architecture producing those results.
A disciplined review asks a separate set of questions:
- Where does additional effort fail to produce proportional ROI?
- Which metrics improve while the underlying outcome they are meant to influence do not?
- Where do decisions slow even when exposure to risk is modest?
- What initiatives require broad alignment regardless of their material impact?
- Which performance conversations remain focused on activity rather than contribution?
Patterns across these inquiries reveal structural friction. Some constraints originate in measurement, where proxy indicators are treated as causal drivers and teams optimize visible but low-impact activity. Others come from sequencing, with work slowed by multiple approvals or functional handoffs once designed for control. Incentives, too, can reward effort or visibility over measurable contribution. And inherited assumptions, paradigms around market definitions, pricing logic or channel strategies may remain long after conditions have shifted.
Research grounding
According to an article titled: Resource-based view of marketing innovation in SME “Strategic management research rooted in the resource-based view explains that competitive effectiveness stems not only from external positioning but from a firm’s internal configuration of valuable resources and capabilities.”
Pipeline segmentation insight
Structural clarity around how work and decisions move often reveals hidden capacity that is otherwise absorbed in routine processes.
Individually, each element seems manageable. Collectively, they absorb capacity and quietly steal ROI. Surfacing them does not assign blame or prescribe correction, yet it crucially names the forces at work, creating a clearer field for leadership judgment.