The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

One of Eli Goldratt’s convictions was that the goal of an individual or an organization should not be defined in absolute terms. A good definition of a goal is one that sets us on a path of ongoing improvement.
Pursuing such a goal necessitates more than one breakthrough. In fact it requires many. To be in a position to identify these breakthroughs we should have a deep understanding of the underlying rules of our environment. Twenty-five years after writing The Goal, Dr. Goldratt wrote Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. In this article he provided the underlying rules of operations. This article appears at the end of this book.

“Like Mrs. Fields and her cookies,The Goal was too tasty to remain obscure. Companies began buying big batches and management schools included it in their curriculums. —Fortune Magazine


“A survey of the reading habits of managers found that though they buy books by the likes of Tom Peters for display purposes, the one management book they have actually read from cover to cover is The Goal.” —The Economist


"Goal readers are now doing the best work of their lives.” —Success Magazine


“A factory may be an unlikely setting for a novel, but the book has been wildly effective.: —Tom Peters


Required reading for Amazon's Management.