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The Bottleneck Podcast · January 13 · 1 hr 58 min

Clarke Ching with Rory Sutherland and Elfried Samba on bottlenecks, leadership and progress

Clarke Ching — author of The Bottleneck Detective — joins Rory Sutherland and Elfried Samba to unpack why progress stalls, how leaders quietly become constraints, and why fixing the obvious problem often makes things worse. Most organisations don’t fail because of a lack of effort.
They fail because effort is applied in the wrong place. From traffic systems and hospitals to founders, governments and scaling teams, this conversation explores how bottlenecks hide in plain sight — and why seeing them requires a different kind of thinking. This episode is about the uncomfortable truth that growth rarely fails where people expect it to. Follow Rory: Instagram: @rorysutherland_clips TikTok: @Rorysutherlandclips X: @rorysutherland LinkedIn: in/rorysutherland/ Follow Elfried: Instagram: elfriedsamba LinkedIn: in/elfriedsamba/ https://www.butterflyeffect.xyz/ Follow Clarke: Linkedin: in/clarkeching/ https://clarkeching.com/ Follow Rory: Instagram: @rorysutherland_clips TikTok: @Rorysutherlandclips X: @rorysutherland LinkedIn: in/rorysutherland/ Follow Elfried: Instagram: elfriedsamba LinkedIn: in/elfriedsamba/ https://www.butterflyeffect.xyz/ Follow Clarke: Linkedin: in/clarkeching/ https://clarkeching.com/ A @Sassy+ original podcast series

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transcript

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show notes

Clarke Ching — author of The Bottleneck Detective — joins Rory Sutherland and Elfried Samba to unpack why progress stalls, how leaders quietly become constraints, and why fixing the obvious problem often makes things worse.

Most organisations don’t fail because of a lack of effort.
They fail because effort is applied in the wrong place.

From traffic systems and hospitals to founders, governments and scaling teams, this conversation explores how bottlenecks hide in plain sight — and why seeing them requires a different kind of thinking.

This episode is about the uncomfortable truth that growth rarely fails where people expect it to.


Follow Rory:

Instagram: @rorysutherland_clips

TikTok: @Rorysutherlandclips

X: @rorysutherland

LinkedIn: in/rorysutherland/


Follow Elfried:

Instagram: elfriedsamba

LinkedIn: in/elfriedsamba/

https://www.butterflyeffect.xyz/


Follow Clarke:

Linkedin: in/clarkeching/

https://clarkeching.com/

Follow Rory:

Instagram: @rorysutherland_clips

TikTok: @Rorysutherlandclips

X: @rorysutherland

LinkedIn: in/rorysutherland/


Follow Elfried:

Instagram: elfriedsamba

LinkedIn: in/elfriedsamba/

https://www.butterflyeffect.xyz/


Follow Clarke:

Linkedin: in/clarkeching/

https://clarkeching.com/


A @Sassy+ original podcast series