“Oh, good – less resources!”…said nobody…ever.

When was the last time you were in a planning meeting and someone increased your budget and asked you to sign up for LESS volume? Ummm…never, right?

The fact is, the conversation is almost always the exact opposite. They want MORE volume, MORE profit, MORE market share…with LESS spending, LESS people, LESS time.

And these aren’t the only constraints or limitations that are put in our way. Increased competition, changing market dynamics, evolving technologies, intensifying social and political pressures…

Some people kind of shut down when faced with new constraints. Their level of ambition lowers. They become victims – walking the halls wondering ‘Why Me???’ and already planning how they are going to explain their misses.

Others find ways around the constraints. They dig in and find detours around (or over, or under) the constraints. They view them as roadblocks that are immovable and that need to be avoided.

As Mark Barden, BMC2015 speaker and author of “A Beautiful Constraint,” describes it, these may not even be different people. They are, more accurately, states of mind that the same person may find her or himself progressing through. First, it may be the “Victim” mentality. That may give way to what Barden describes as a ‘”Neutralizer” mentality.

The third state of mind – the one that the most successful people and organizations find their way to – is what Barden calls the “Transformer.” When someone is in this phase, they find ways to see constraints NOT AS LIMITATIONS, BUT AS OPPORTUNITIES. They are not victimized by the constraints but, instead, energized by them.

When one is in this mindset, the constraints nudge them to see the world differently. They push them towards innovation, towards game-changing approaches to solving problems, towards adding value in areas they couldn’t imagine before.

Barden and his co-author Adam Morgan have spent a great deal of time trying to understand how constraints have been turned into possibilities and innovations by people and organizations around the world. In doing so, they have been able to develop a methodology that traverses the path that starts with changing one’s mindset, transitions into specific ways to look at and analyze constraints to find the beauty that lies within, and ends with the motivation to activate.

At Brand ManageCamp (October 1-2, Las Vegas), Mark will provide simple and practical tools to help us embrace and use constraints to really and truly do more with less. When he is through, you will understand the mindset, the method, and the motivation required to make constraints beautiful.

It’s going to be fun. We hope you will join us!