“PRODUCTIVITY is the act of bringing a company (organization or person) closer to its GOAL.”
“Every ACTION that brings a company (organization or person) closer to its GOAL is PRODUCTIVE.”
“Every ACTION that does NOT bring a company (organization or person) closer to its GOAL is not PRODUCTIVE.”
“What I’m telling you is…
PRODUCTIVITY IS MEANINGLESS YOU KNOW YOUR GOAL.”
Eliyahu Goldratt is an Israeli physicist who has been described by Fortune magazine as a “guru to industry” and by Business Week as a “genius”.
He wrote a self-published, underground best seller entitled THE GOAL (North River Press, 1984, Revised 1986 and 1992).
This may be one of the best ‘business books’ I’ve ever read. It’s not dense, text-heavy business gobbley gook with charts, tables and Venn diagrams.
It’s actually written as a fiction story. Jonah (the consultant) uses the Socratic method of asking questions of Alex (the manager) to completely turn around a faltering business/ manufacturing plant.
THE GOAL, on one hand, is complex, with terms like “thruput”, “bottlenecks”, “the theory of constraints” and “the cloud theory”. (A different ‘cloud’.)
Yet, at the same time, it is incredibly SIMPLE: WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?
IF PRODUCTIVITY is a function of understanding your GOAL… being able to define SUCCESS… being able to MEASURE your progress…
Then, THE CHALLENGE is to:
- 1. DEFINE SUCCESS.
- 2. SET SPECIFIC GOALS.
- 3. CREATE MEASUREMENTS.
Special, Special Note: Dr. Goldratt closes this WOW of a book with this 3-part summary on change:
“You need a light bulb idea for a breakthrough. You need a ‘thinking process’ that forces and guides (you) relative to CHANGE and CHALLENGES.”
“This thinking process should lead to answering 3 questions:
- 1. WHAT to change.
- 2. WHAT to change to.
- 3. HOW to cause the change.”
Simple, not easy.
