The Goal [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Author), Eric Conger (Narrator), Jeff Cox (Collaborator)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

ELIYAHU M. 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. Through his lectures and writings, as well as his work with such corporations as General Motors, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, and AT&T, Dr. Goldratt continues his crusade to teach businesses to re-examine their basic assumptions in order to compete effectively in the new global market place.

From AudioFile

In a business text disguised as a novel, a remarkable cast of actors dramatizes a fascinating tale of discovery and redemption. In the story, the manager of a troubled plant learns from a mathematician turned consultant that many of his management practices and economic assumptions are faulty. After he retools his thinking, he convinces everyone else at the factory to get with the new program. The story's flow is slowed by extraneous dialogue and subplots, but it's still a good story and a captivating format for serving up the author's message--that businesses weighed down by archaic habits can be wildly profitable when fresh mathematical methods are implemented with courageous persistence. T.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Highbridge; 2nd,Revised edition (November 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565114086
• ISBN-13: 978-1565114081
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.3 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,039,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Too much of a good thing..., April 8, 2005

By 

Roy Massie (Birmingham, AL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Goal (Audio Cassette)

This book is already extensively reviewed here on Amazon so I'm going to boil my opinions down to some pros and cons.
Pros:
1. Provides an intro to theory of constraints TOC management. This is an area I where I needed an intro and the book helped.
2. Business text in a novel format is very clever and works well...for a while...(mine was unabridged on tape).
3. Clever analogies spur you to think about TOC in everyday life. The main character learns lessons about queuing theory and pipeline throughput on a Boy Scout hike. as well as on his plants floor and other places.
4. Later in the book, the extrapolation to constraints in management policies is an interesting and logical conclusion to the book.
5. Pretty good characters - some of them are more brilliant than the above average folk you meet in the business world - the main character Alex is very sharp.
6. The principles given sound obvious but many times this what the best theorists do - systematize common sense.
7. I like the idea of the scientific method discovering intrinsic order in things that appear too complex to predict. Pretty good informal definition of science - which is notoriously difficult to define formally (read Thomas Kuhn).

Cons
1. Too long...a lot of novel to wade through for nuggets of TOC theory. TOC web sites better source for concise treatment. Got so involved and lengthy it was hard for me to absorb the lessons later in the book.
2. Main character's wife is like a whiney little girl, not a woman, through much of the book - mostly because her husband wouldn't communicate and be honest with her....still a whiney spoiled child. I got very tired of her so it didn't matter when she got better. She detracts from the value of the book.
3. A few inconsistencies in the story - not a big deal - but since it is a novel this is fair game. Example, early in the book Alex says he studied advanced math formulas in college, later he doesn't know enough math to approach a physics book.... It's at least confusing if I am mistaken on this point.
4. Tape editing could be better. Very long pauses between chapters make it hard to know if you're at the end of a tape. Otherwise, the audio quality and reading are very good.

The final tape is an essay by the book's author on his own experience as a management theorist/businessman.
1. Brilliant mind, obviously the genius behind the novel and TOC...time will tell if it as important as calculus as he claims - that's a tall order.
2. Gives considerable detail about his roller coaster story of software companies, books, movies, games - all sorts of channels to get his theories out there. Many times the theories have been proven in the real world - more of this case study info would have been helpful.
3. Please forgive me if I am being too unkind, but I think this needs to be said: Mr. Goldratt seems to have some sort of martyr complex in never missing an opportunity to point out individuals, often by name, who disagreed with him and were later proven wrong. I didn't buy the book to hear these sort of self-aggrandizing charges made against other people I don't know. I bet there is another side to his story and frankly I don't care to hear that one either. Just give me the info (TOC) I bought the book for. This can be accomplished without the constant refrain of how non-understanding specific individuals can be (like the books' co-author among many others) in resisting change while simultaneously showing how brilliant Mr. Goldratt is.

I give the book a good rating because of how innovative it is and how important the ideas in it seem to be. If you just want the TOC info, look on the web for it. If you want some entertainment while being introduced to the theories it's a pretty good book.