The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, By Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Nicole Schlinger Book Review)
Two great things about this book -
First, the Theory of Constraints is must-have organizational knowledge. While the story is about bottlenecks (and what to do about them) a manufacturing operation, the principles are just as applicable to knowledge work where information gets bottle-necked even more intransigently than a manufacturing assembly line.
Second, business authors would get a lot more readership if they would turn their lessons into stories. I can’t tell you how many times I put down a good book and potentially lost out on useful information because I couldn’t stand being preached at by a business coach who thought the only want to get his (or her) point across was to repeatedly bludgeon me over the head with it … Yes, I’m looking at you Blue Ocean Shift Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim. Seriously!
Keep in mind, this book was written in the early 80s. So it’s a miracle Goldratt included ANY women in his organizational schema. The one woman on the management team at Alex’s company has a surprisingly non-token role, although the questionable after-work drinks bely the fact that Goldratt is a management consultant, not an expert storyteller.
I was more than halfway through the book when I took a moment to find out more about Goldratt. It’s pretty clear he means for himself to be the wise Israeli professor who starts Alex on his path to greatness.
This was one of my favorite reads of 2017. It was one that has had immediate and long lasting effects on how CampaignHQ operates.
And it was a nice surprise in 2018 to find another favorite author, Mike Michalowicz (Author of Profit First) , talking about the same principles in his new book, Clockwork (Review here.)
