{"id":21036,"date":"2020-12-19T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=21036"},"modified":"2020-12-20T18:16:13","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T22:16:13","slug":"the-goal-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-goal-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Goal Book: A Key Text on Production Optimization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is The Goal<\/em> book about? How does The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement<\/em> help you increase production and profitability?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Goal <\/em>book reminds you that the main objective for any business is to make money. It provides guidance for how to address production issues and increase profitability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading for the key points from The Goal <\/em>book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Shortform Introduction<\/strong> to The Goal <\/em> Book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement<\/em> is a classic management text, and on Jeff Bezos\u2019s short-list of books recommended to new managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Goal is written in the form of an allegory, where a manufacturing plant manager has to reduce a large backlog of orders and improve factory throughput. Its management lessons are interwoven with the manager\u2019s epiphanies. Because we felt the lessons were more important than the narrative, we\u2019ve focused on the teachings and theory, and we\u2019ve summarized the narrative in a chapter at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you apply the lessons in this book to? It\u2019s an easy leap to apply The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement<\/em><\/em> to manufacturing, operations, supply chain, and automation problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes a bit more thinking to apply it to knowledge work<\/a>, larger projects, or your personal life, but the principles are generalizable. To really get the most out of this The Goal<\/em> book summary, think constantly about how you can apply it to your own situation – whether that\u2019s closing sales clients, creating software products, managing a team, or writing books.
Take the advice of Ray Dalio<\/a> in Principles<\/em>: view yourself top-down as a machine, digesting inputs and creating outputs. From this perspective, you\u2019ll be capable of studying and optimizing yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Goal<\/strong> <\/em>Book Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Productivity is defined as bringing you closer to your goal. Every action that brings you closer to your goal is productive. Every action that does not bring you closer is not productive, even if it seems so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Goal of every business is to make money. Likewise, activities that do not bring you closer to making money are not productive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n