Ted Chan

I just finished reading The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox. It was a very interesting read and a bit different. Actually I had heard about this book when I was in school. I had taken a project management class and it was one of the texts that we went over. We didn’t have to read it as the teacher had given us a summary of the main concepts of the book.

Recently I had been exposed to it again by one of my coaches and mentors (Rich Schefren of Strategic Profits). Anyways, I decided that I would go and read it because it came highly recomended. I enjoyed the book and will be rereading a couple of chapters in the book that had some very key concepts. The book discusses the journey that Alex Rogo has to make as he tries to turn around an ailing manufacturing factory. He has many challenges and stresses from his boss, subordinates and family.

I really enjoyed Eliyahu’s fictional writing style because it allowed him to relate some key concepts in a very digestable fashion. It’s a bit of a textbook in a non-textbook style, story telling style.

The socratic method and the use of drawing out the answers was very exciting because it gave me the chance to think how I’d solve these problems and then compare them to what the “teacher” in the story was teaching about. I’ll go into more details about what I learned from the book in another post. But if you’re doing anything with systems or processes, I’d highly recommend you go take a look at The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox.