The most relevant business book ever published

This book was definitely not what I expected it to be.  It so far surpassed my expectations that I immediately purchased several to give out to a few lucky friends.  The best teachers use stories to convey their message because it makes their lesson so much easier to remember.  Eliyahu Goldratt’s “The Goal” is both a gripping novel and a thought provoking business book.

The book’s hero, Alex Rogo, is a plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance.  His factory, and his marriage, are both rapidly heading for disaster.  He has just ninety days to save both.  It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from his student days to help him break out of his conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.

The story of Alex’s fight to save his plant and his marriage is more than compulsive reading.  It contains a serious message for those in business and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints developed by Mr. Goldratt. Eliyahu Goldratt is an Israeli physicist, inventor, and philosopher whose unconventional approach to business management has made him one of the most sought-after consultants in the world today.  He is an internationally recognized leader in the development of new business management concepts and systems, and acts as an educator to many of the world’s corporations who have been transformed by his ideas.

This book helps you learn how to improve the performance of a system by giving you a replicable process that you can apply to analyze any human or engineering system.  Although, the primary metaphor is improving a manufacturing process, the same principles apply more broadly to other circumstances.

Another lesson of the book is on the consequences of letting your business process run in a vicious cycle – your family life may also. Unlike a lot of books that take complicated ideas and over-simplify them so that the ideas lose their meaning, this book simplifies ideas in such a way that they become easier to see and employ.

Once you’ve read The Goal, you’ll never look at your business in the same way again.  It will open your mind to the theory of constraints and the process of ongoing improvement, and with a little practice, it will enable you to achieve big results in your business.

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