DAY 16: THE WEAKEST LINK IN THE CHAIN

I am Bengain, and this is not my real name. I haven't found anyone to talk about my journey in the world of business with, so here I am. and the story is [here]..

Good evening.. How was your day?.. " you who are in a hurry, stop to listen". This is one of our famous sayings in our region. It explains what happened to me today. Its meaning is that when a person is in a hurry to do something, suddenly what delays them appears as if in retaliation.. I had a lot of tasks today, but my dear laptop had a different opinion and asked me to update it! It took about six hours!.. The problem is if I postpone the update, the laptop will become slow and I won't be able to work smoothly. I think Microsoft does this on purpose to force everyone to switch to newer versions, as soon as there is an update, the laptop's responsiveness changes.. This is really bad!.. It's not just them who do this, for example phone companies have started to end support early for phones even if they still work fine, like Apple did when they ended support for the iPhone 7 after only six years since its release. Consequently, consumers are forced to buy a new Apple product every six years!.. Are there any regulations to address this issue?.. Imagine if I was in a meeting, or had an important task to work on or deliver.. a real problem indeed!

Anyway, let's leave the laptop and what happened and let me tell you about one of the most beautiful ideas I learned during my journey in business learning, this idea can be called: "The Weakest Link in the chain"

First- as you all know, any iron chain when pulled from both ends will collapse at a certain point (link), and this link is the weakest compared to the rest because it collapsed first.. Now, if we reconnect the chain but replace the weak link with a stronger one, what will happen?.. The entire chain will become stronger and more resistant to pulling, right?.. Because we removed the weakest link. And the link that will collapse this time will definitely be stronger than the one that collapsed before.. Now, if we repeat the process for a second time, what will happen? It will also become stronger than the previous time.. And if we repeat it for a third, fourth, and fifth time, the chain will become stronger and stronger each time..

Now another question: if we want to increase the chain's ability to withstand pulling force, which of the following two actions will give us the greatest effectiveness, replacing the weakest link or replacing another link?.. Certainly, the answer is replacing the weakest link, because no matter how strong the other links are, the chain will always collapse at the same force each time at the weakest link.

From the above, we notice that if we want to strengthen a specific chain with maximum efficiency, we must work each time on the weakest point in this chain... Alright, what does that have to do with business?

Let's assume we have a company operating in a certain field, and this company has the following capabilities:


Supply of raw materials sufficient to produce 10 units of the product it manufactures daily

Manufacturing 8 units of the product daily

Selling 5 units of the product daily


If the company wanted to increase its sales by improving its operations, which of the previous operations would achieve the best effectiveness through development? Certainly, increasing its sales capacity, because no matter how much it improves its ability to provide raw materials or the quantities of products it manufactures, it will not sell more than 5 units of this product... The company's sales capacity in this case is considered the "weakest link in the chain".

Now, let's assume that the company enhanced its sales capacity to be able to sell 7 units of the product daily, and thus the company's capabilities became as follows:


Supply of raw materials sufficient to produce 10 units of the product it manufactures daily

Manufacturing 8 units of the product daily

Selling 7 units of the product daily


Now, as you can see, the company is now selling 7 products a day instead of 5 as it was before... Now, let's assume that the company wanted to develop its capabilities again to increase its sales... It must also increase its sales process capabilities again because it is still the weakest link... Now, let's assume that it enhanced its sales capacity to be able to sell 10 products a day, in this case, the company's new capabilities are:


Supply of raw materials sufficient to produce 10 units of the product it manufactures daily

Manufacturing 8 units of the product daily

Selling 10 units of the product daily


Now, if the company wants to enhance its capabilities to increase its sales, where will the weakest link be?.. As you can see, the company's sales capacity is no longer the weakest link because it has become stronger than the company's manufacturing capacity... So, this time the company must enhance its manufacturing capacity... and so on each time.

As you can see from the above, the best efficiency we can achieve in developing a chain is to strengthen its weakest point (link) in relation to the rest of the links each time... And the same -almost- applies to everything we do in our lives if we look at it as a chain, whether in the business world or outside the business world. To develop this work or anything we do with maximum efficiency, our job is always to search for this point and focus on it each time.. And this is what I always try to train myself on.

I really hope that you try this out, you will be amazed by the results.. Perhaps you might jot it down as a note somewhere to always remember it as I did.

As for me, I now seek your permission to go to sleep, as I no longer have any point that can resist (smiles).

I hope you always stay well,

And I hope to meet you again,

Good night,


Why, Microsoft, why do you do this!.. It's really bad..