It's Not Luck

by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Alex Rogo, the new executive vice president of UniCo, must turn around three newly acquired companies, knowing that if he succeeds, they will be sold off and the new owners will replace him, and if he fails, the companies will be closed--in either case, he will likely be fired.

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction, Leadership, Audiobook, Self Help, Buisness

283 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Eliyahu Moshe Goldratt (Hebrew: אליהו משה גולדרט) was an educator, author, physicist, philosopher and business leader, but first and foremost, he was a thinker who provoked others to think. Often characterized as unconventional, stimulating, and “a slayer of sacred cows,” he urged his audience to examine and reassess their business practices with a fresh, new vision.

Dr. Goldratt is best known as the father of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), a process of ongoing improvement that identifies and leverages a system’s constraints in order to achieve the system’s goals. He introduced TOC’s underlying concepts in his business novel, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, which has been recognized as one of the best-selling business books of all time. First published in 1984, The Goal has been updated three times and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. It has been translated into 35 languages.

Heralded as a “guru to industry” by Fortune magazine and “a genius” by Business Week, Dr. Goldratt continued to advance the TOC body of knowledge throughout his life, building on the Five Focusing Steps (the process of ongoing improvement, known as POOGI) with TOC-derived tools such as Drum-Buffer-Rope, Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) and the Thinking Processes. He authored ten other TOC-related books, including four business novels: It’s Not Luck (the sequel to The Goal), Critical Chain, Necessary but Not Sufficient and Isn’t It Obvious? His last book, The Choice, was co-authored by his daughter Efrat Ashlang-Goldratt.

Born in Israel on March 31, 1947, Dr. Goldratt earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Tel Aviv University and a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy from Bar-Ilan University. He is the founder of TOC for Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing TOC Thinking and TOC tools to teachers and their students, and Goldratt Consulting. In addition to his pioneering work in business management and education, Dr. Goldratt holds patents in a number of areas ranging from medical devices to drip irrigation to temperature sensors. He died on June 11, 2011, at the age of 64.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

In The Goal, Eliyahu Goldratt set out in the form of a novel what he called 'the theory of constraints', broadly the principle that a convoy moves at the speed of the slowest ship into a universal organising idea, this book.

As a story it's not as effective, there isn't the same sense of threat or excitement that I felt in the first book as Alex grappled to save the factory, and employed the same insights on batch size management and production organisation to save his marriage which was naturally faltering as he spent all his time down the factory eating pizza, however it does develop the ideas and adds some new conceptual tools.

At one stage our hero is taken on a business trip by aeroplane by two venture capitalists. Hero tells them that they are boozy asset strippers you never did a day's graft in their life, their response is that they through their investment policies and asset striping drive the stock market which is apparently good for everyone's pension funds which apparently makes everything ok possibly the feeblest literary comeback ever, but to be fair I haven't been keeping a precise data set.

In this book, having transformed his factory into a cash cow, the hero Alex, gets promoted to run a division of three businesses, a barely profitable printing business and two others the details of which I no longer remember, and he is tasked with transforming these in to dynamic dynamos spinning out wads of money and to raise the capital to save the corporation as a whole in the process which will require the sale of at least one of the businesses - all of which clamour for further investment. The basic idea is that this ought to appear mission impossible and yet like a fiendish murder mystery be transformed into mission accomplished within a hundred pages or so thanks to the hero's handy toolkit of brilliant ideas, which I don't think it is a spoiler to say he does just as one expects Miss Marple to solve the murder and not at the end of the novel simply walkout of the village wearing only a string of pearls declaring her intention to go to Harrogate.

As a business book however it's a light but thought-provoking read, it is mildly interesting how Alex solves the puzzle of which businesses to sell and how. Also it turns out the same fundamental toolkit allows the hero to manage his teenaged children beware though: the author offers no cashback guarantee for the success of this in managing real life children of any age

[Demi Yilmaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this book to everyone.

This is one of the best books I've read. The thinking processes are amazing and well structured. The book doesn't show a step by step on how a problem is solved but is a story where a manager solves problems one by one using the Theory of Constraints Thinking Processes.

It took me a while to construct a system on how these processes could be applied. There wasn't a complete set of example which uses all the tools for 1 specific problem so I created it. I've done presentations & workshops on this topic. Feel free to use my case study.

http://demiculus.com/TOC/Step_by_Step...

This book is the continuum of The Goal but it is not necessary to read The Goal in order to understand the core concepts in this book.

[Rick Yvanovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do so much enjoy the style of Eli Goldratt, I find its easy to read and understand the concepts. This book is like a sequel to The Goal and takes the TOC concepts into other areas of the business such as Marketing and sales. If you liked the Goal, you'll like this too.

[Razvan Rogoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh man...

I remember clearly when I've started this book. I was in London, at Victoria Station. The station was under maintenance and there were workers everywhere. I was so much younger than now. But as with so many things in life, I've never finished it.

Well, I did now.

And it's awesome. And I love business novels. And I enjoyed it just as much as "The Goal".

But this 3 AM review will be more than about the book.

You see, on a rational level, I know one thing. Each time after I finish one of these books, my life upgrades in some manner. I become smarter or I get a paradigm shift. It's Razvan 5.1 and then 5.2 and so on. My "reality" gets a software update.

Sometimes the update is small, an idea or two. Other times, it is one of those huge paradigm shifts that changes the way I look at the world.

Each book is a guaranteed win. It's like playing the lottery and knowing that you will win and that you'll get a lot more than you paid for. And yet, me, dumbass, what am I doing?

Spending $50 on IOS games. Playing GTA San Andreas on my phone. Watching NetFlix movies. I swear, after I read each one of these books, I feel a sense of satisfaction because I know my life will never be the same. It's not a maybe. It's a pattern. And reading proved and proves to be one of the most satisfying and high leverage activities in my life, next to building meaningful connections and strategic planning.

But I don't. I waste my time with other things. And with the end of this book, I commit to something. I'll read everything I can. Because if after each book my life gets better and I want to earn more, do better, then this is the logical path to get there.

It's a business novel. It's not as educative as a Stephen Covey let's say. But it's still infinitely better than some stupid video game or some late night movie when I can't sleep. I love reading at this moment but I must become obsessed with it, as it is a huge level of leverage in my life.

Yeah, not so much a business review but how the book impacted me.

As far as the book itself - well, it continues from The Goal, it focuses on building those logical trees (and not so much on TOS, which is a bit of a disappointment because I love the elegance of TOS) and it combines fiction with business education. If you're on the 2nd book, chances are you know the first one.

Yup.

That's all.

Read kids. It's good. It makes you rich and handsome and happy. It's not a myth. There is a direct correlation between the time you spend with your Kindle or paperback and the results you get in life. I know I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't read +300 books. And no, I'm not saying that you need to read 300 books to become successful but to be honest, I'm not the smartest, I'm not the wisest, without reading, I don't think I would have succeeded. Others may have it easier.

[Sergey Shishkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alex Rogo continues doing miracles at UniCo. In this installment he turns 3 companies in his diversified group from "bottomless pits" into highly profitable businesses and role models in their respective industries.

Through Alex' story Dr. Goldratt introduces the concept of the market perception of value and the ToC thinking processes: construction of the conflict cloud, the current and the future reality trees. He also develops generic win-win marketing strategy and outlines the foundation of the company wide strategy.

[Jeff Kinsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written as a business novel, similar to “The Goal” and is in fact a sequel. One that stands alone as well. This is the marketing book Goldratt wrote and referenced when people asked him for such a reference source.

It also talks about supply chains and the Pull Distribution model. Akin to the Lean Pull model yet different. I consider it a must-read.

—ski

P.S. Ask me for a copy of my White Paper on Distribution based on this seminal work.

[Tiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent extension of principles from The Goal

As usual, Goldratt does an excellent job applying his time-tested principles to a new field. This may be what he is best at actually, even more than developing concepts in the first place. This book suffers on everything that usually defines fiction - plot, characters, dialogue, etc. - but it's made up for by the power of the ideas.

[Robert Pragai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alex Rogo demonstrates how one can facilitate and empower people around them to solve problems in different industries.

[Fede · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good ideas, some well presented, some barely mentioned, which at times made the book feel a bit of a Jonah's courses paid promotion. The story was poorer than that of "The Goal".
Despite this, it left me with a more structured frame of reasoning, which is very valuable.

[Vadassery Rakesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a sequel which is better than the original. I thought initially that goal-2 is just an effort to make money piggybacking on the success of Goal. But thoroughly mistaken. Goal -2 is definetely a better book, but only could be understood if you've read Goal.
The ideas are typically of a genius.

[Adnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice storytelling and fascinating ideas. Would be even better if it included more graphic details to help visualise the concepts.

I recommend to read The Goal first.

[karoline steinfatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich komme mit diesem Format "Business-Novel" einfach nicht klar. Die zugrundeliegenden Prinzipien, die mit diesem Werk vermittelt werden sollen, sind zwar einleuchtend, aber dennoch: This novel should have been 5 Blogposts. (Da es ein kostenloses Hörbuch war, kann ich mich aber eigentlich nicht beschweren, sondern ärgere mich einfach nur über die investierte überflüssige Zeit.)

[Kostiantyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the last chapter of the novel “The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement” one of the main characters says: “maybe we were lucky”. Of course, this isn't true. The author is simply teasing the reader and hinting at a sequel. Ten years after the publication of the first book, Eliyahu Goldratt writes the continuation – “It's Not Luck”.

The second novel begins quite traditionally. You could even say it was a copy made with carbon paper. This time, it's not a factory that's being closed, but an entire group though. The headquarter decides getting rid of it by selling the factories. The protagonist, no surprise, finds himself at the center of events and is deeply affected by this crisis. In his opinion, “his” factories shouldn't be sold. Who would doubt it? And as soon as we hear “6 months”, it becomes clear how long it will take for him to successfully turn the situation around.

Nevertheless, the first ten or so chapters strongly suggest that the decision to sell couldn't be changed. Despite this, the protagonist fights to the last, reaching new heights and overcoming such incredible milestones that no one had ever dreamed of before. Naturally, during the business transformation of each of the three factories, their capitalization skyrockets to such an extent that the decision to sell no longer seems so logical.

But when the final argument remains – the strategic decision of the leadership – the protagonist faces the last constraint: his own conviction that selling the factories is inherently bad. And this is probably the only moment that is somewhat new and distinctive in this book.

Sorry. I take that back. Unlike the first book, where the goal was solely to make money, “It's Not Luck” adds two more necessary conditions:
• To provide employees with a secure and fulfilling environment, and
• To satisfy the needs of the market.

Don't get me wrong, there are many more tools and examples in this book. If in the first book we were content with logical reasoning – all explanations were thoroughly explained and illustrated – in this book, the author went much further and presented us with a wealth of applied solutions.

I remember when I first read “It's Not Luck”, I liked this novel much more than the first one. I started practicing evaporating clouds, although I never got around to logical trees. But after some time and re-read, I came to the conclusion that the tools and examples are much less useful than the logical processes in the background.

[Dmitry · Rating 1 out of 5]

(The English review is placed beneath Russian one)

Счёт 2:2. Это не футбол, это моё отношение к книгам данного автора, т.е. из четырёх книг, что я прочёл у этого автора, две мне понравились, а две другие - нет. Данную книгу я записываю к группе «не понравились».
В принципе, я практически дочитал эту книгу, и мне оставалось прочесть последнюю четверть. Но я остановился. И причина тут одна: не работающий метод как таковой.
Что ж, начнём с самого начала. Я не буду писать про небольшие минусы, как то разговор главного героя с детьми, который мне показался крайне фальшивым, ибо это далеко не главное в этой книге и если бы в целом метод был бы неплохой, то можно было бы закрыть глаза и на такие огрехи. Но метод провальный. Я даже бьюсь об заклад, что никто, кто поставил книге высшие оценки, не пользуется методом автор, т.е. не стоит все эти деревья и пр. А вот деревья тут просто ужасные.
Во-первых, меня невероятно раздражали все эти обозначения типа: «Дерево Будущей Действительности», «Дерево Существующей Действительности», «Дерево Перехода», «негативная весть», (вы ещё не запутались во всех этих деревьях?) «инъекции», «решения для прорыва», «туча», «НЖЯ», «стрелка конфликта» и так далее и так далее. Кому-то покажется всё это интересным и, возможно, даже забавным. Мне кажется бизнес-тренеры любят придумывать подобные словечки. Однако лично меня всё это невероятно раздражало, и главной причиной было то, что все эти деревья и сопутствующая им атрибутика только сбивало с мысли, только всё запутывало, усложняло. Я уже заранее знал, что я вряд ли буду когда-либо использовать все эти деревья (в отличие от идеи с бутылочным горлышком, кстати). Нет, я понимаю, если бы автор ввёл одно два понятия, но тут их чуть ли не десятки. Зачем столько? Почему нельзя использовать обычные и привычные всем слова без этой абракадабры про деревья и ветки?
Но даже допустим. Допустим автор…прав. Но прав где? Мне скажут, что именно благодаря этим деревьям он нашёл решения. Увы, и это главная вторая причина, почему книга мне не понравилась. Автор ничего сверхнового и необычного не предложил. Я вообще удивляюсь, как это не было создано в самом начале работы фирм. Так, первое решение заключается в сегментации. Ребят, да вы шутите? Это же основа основ, азы маркетинга. Как фирма могла работать и более того, как получилось, что никто, кто отвечает за маркетинг, не задумался над вопросом сегментирования, учитывая, что там существует десятки вариантов сегментирования? Это просто непостижимо.
Второе решение – мы должны смотреть на проблему глазами наших клиентов, с их точки зрения, что требуется (или может потребоваться) им и т.д. Тоже главная тема многих серьёзных книг по маркетингу (не а-ля Сет Годин).
И третье решение, после которого я понял, что дальше читать смысла нет, это глава 22, где главный герой сталкивается с ситуацией, когда продавцы не могут заключить сделки. Так вот. То, что пишет автор, это слово в слово, о чём пишет в своих книгах (4 тома) Нил Рекхэм, т.е. я говорю о СПИН продажах. Вот цитата из книги: «Вместо того чтобы начинать с представления вашего продукта, вы начинаете с того, что представляете снабженцу его собственные проблемы». Когда я это прочёл, я просто не поверил своим глазам. Это же чистый СПИН! А что это всё означает в сумме? Ответ: способ, который предлагает автор, на самом деле не эффективен или что это вообще никакой не способ. Он ничего не даёт. Всё это уже было написано и объяснено. Все эти деревья только запутывают, но ничего не дают взамен.

The score is 2:2. It's not football, it's my attitude to this author's books, i.e. from four books that I read from this author, two of them I liked, but two others I didn't. I am writing this book down to the band "didn't like it".
Basically, I almost finished this book, and I had only to read the last quarter of the book. But I stopped. And there's only one reason: the method itself wasn't working.
Well, let's start from the beginning. I'm not going to write about small minuses, like the main character's conversation with the children, which I thought was extremely false, because it's not the main thing in this book, and if the whole method would be good, it would be possible to close your eyes to such drawbacks. But the method is a failure. I even bet that nobody who gave the book the highest marks, does not use the method of the author, i.e., not worth all these trees, etc. But the trees here are just terrible.
First of all, I was incredibly annoyed with all these designations such as "Tree of Future Reality", "Tree of Existing Reality", "Tree of Transition", "Negative Message" (you are not yet confused in all these trees?) "injections", "solutions for a breakthrough", "clouds", "STU", "conflict shooter" and so on and so forth (this is a translation from Russian, not the original!). Somebody will find all this interesting and, perhaps, even funny. I think business coaches like to come up with such words. However, personally, all this irritated me incredibly, and the main reason was that all these trees and the accompanying paraphernalia only confused me, complicated me. I already knew beforehand that I was unlikely to ever use all these trees (unlike the bottleneck idea, by the way). No, I understand if the author had introduced one or two concepts, but there are almost dozens of them. Why so many? Why is it impossible to use common and usual words without this abracadabra about trees and branches?
But even suppose. Let's suppose the author...is right. But where is he right? I will be told that it is thanks to these trees that he has found solutions. Alas, and this is the main second reason why I did not like the book. The author did not offer anything new and unusual. I'm surprised it wasn't created at the beginning of the company's work. So, the first solution is segmentation. Are you guys kidding me? This is the basis of the basics, the basics of marketing. How could a firm even work and more importantly, how did nobody (who is responsible for marketing) think about segmentation, given that there are dozens of segmentation options? This is simply incomprehensible.
The second solution is that we have to look at the problem through the eyes of our clients, from their point of view, what they need (or may need), etc. Also the main topic of many serious books on marketing (not a la Seth Godin).
And the third solution, after which I realized that there is no point in reading anymore, is chapter 22 (in the Russian version of the book), where the protagonist faces a situation where the sellers are unable to make deals. So here we are. What the author writes is word for word, which is what Neil Rackham writes in his books (4 volumes), i.e. I am talking about SPIN Selling. Here is a quote from the book (in the Russian version of the book): "Instead of starting with the introduction of your product, you start by presenting the supplier with his own problems". When I have read this, I simply have not believed my eyes. It's a pure SPIN! And what does it all mean in total? The answer is that the way the author proposes isn't really effective, or that it's not a way at all. It does not give anything. All this has already been written and explained. All these trees only confuse, but they do not give anything in return.

[Goktug Yilmaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theory of Constraints:
- Whenever we face a conflict we should not attempt to avoid it by compromising. First step is to precisely verbalize the conflict, then we can find how to break it.
- You can always turn a problem into an opportunity.

Generic:
- Most of the money invested in the market belongs to pension funds for retirement income. Not banks or rich investors.
- One thing more nerve-wracking than being a warrior is being the one waiting behind the lines for the warriors to win.
- The market punishes companies that don’t satisfy the market perception of value
- You can fool a few customers for a long time. You can mislead many customers for a short time. But you cannot mislead many, for long.
- Trying to forecast the market is like trying to capture the wind.
- Most people: Give me all the authority, none of the responsibility.
- As long as you haven’t established a decisive competitive edge in many segments of the market, you should feel exposed. Because the competitors will catch up. There is no absolute competitive edge, it’s just a window of opportunity, which will be closed.

A goal of a company should be:
- Making money now as well as in the future
- Provide a secure and satisfying environment for employees now as well as in the future.
- Provide satisfaction to the market now as well as in the future.

- Making money is much more tangible than the other two. It’s the only one that can be measured. Making money can be measured just because of a coincidence. Somewhere in prehistory a genius invented a way to compare wheat to goats. He or she invented the abstract unit of money, a currency. No one yet has invented a unit of measure for security or satisfaction.

[Tim Zornes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will be one worth coming back to. Learning process improvement and problem solving. Reads like a novel, giving clear applications to the processes being taught.

[Melanie Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some more helpful tools from Goldratt--current reality trees, cloud diagrams. All immediately applicable to my C523 Systems Decision Theory and Applications coursework in the MBA. A business book in a novel format.

[Bjoern Rochel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of the LTP is intriguing. However after listening to the audio-version book, I'm not sure whether I could create a tree. Reading the book would have been better.

[Ciprian Dobre-Trifan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like The Goal, this book is a gold mine. Explains with unshakable logic most business strategy trends that still govern our world today. Simply awesome!

[Serhii Pomohaiev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite reviews about this book in context of being worse than first part, I'm fully satisfied with reading experience. I'd recommend it to read to every manager.

[Vasyl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Якщо у першій книжці йшлося про організацію роботи виробничого підприємства, як виділити найбільш вузькі місця та внести зміни в сам процес, який забезпечить оптимізацію товарного потоку, виробничої продуктивності та призведе до прибутковості організації, то друга частина вже більш ширше охоплює бізнес діяльність.
⠀
Мені вона сподобалася набагато менше. Занадто багато теоретичних роздумів, де все зводилося до побудови логічних схем, названих в книжці деревами. Дерево існуючої дійсності... Дерево майбутньої дійсності... Перехідне дерево і т.д.
Вся діяльність героїв зводилася до побудови правильного дерева проблем і тільки після цього на них сходило осяяння, все ставало легко і просто.
⠀
В цілому я погоджуюся, що проблеми слід розкладати на окремі складові, будувати причинно-наслідкові зв’язки і це полегшить пошук рішень, але панацею з цього методу робити не варто.
Більше того, необхідно, щоб всі задіяні учасники володіли основними принципами і методами побудови таких зв’язків, бо інакше тебе просто не зрозуміють.
Пам’ятаю, як колись до нас приходив консультант на підприємство і пропонував побудувати дерево існуючої дійсності (я ще такі книжки не читав тоді ☺️), не пояснивши нам суть і мету цього процесу. Ми посиділи, послухали, кожен сказав, шо це академічна дурня і більше ми з ним не працювали😉.
Мораль: розвиваєшся сам, втягуй в цей процес партнерів, інакше ризикуєш зіткнутися з нерозумінням.
⠀
Ще один важливий висновок з цієї книжки - в безвихідних, на перший погляд, ситуаціях треба сідати і думати про варіанти виходу.
Це набагато дієвіше, ніж щоденно «гасити пожежі», не намагаючись усунути основне джерело загоряння.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Main character: Alex Rogo Wife: Julie
Like The Goal, Alex Rogo is the main character. This story starts with him as the manager.
Daughter:
Son:
Boss:
Other Books By Eli Goldratt (and Jeff Cox):
The Goal; A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Like The Goal, Alex Rogo is the main character. This story starts with him as the manager of three plants. In the first chapter, the board proposes to sell his companies. In the second chapter, family dynamics are introduced.

Goldratt's Approach
What is the current reality tree?
What are the Undesirable Effects? (UDE) List them all, even when no solution seems apparent.
Create a future reality tree? (Desired state)
Look for solutions to the UDE's, even if they don't seem practical.

Over the weekend I saw opportunity to use this approach, but it was simple enough that taking hours to construct clouds and reality trees was not needed

I finished (It's Not Luck) about 4 days ago. (Thursday or Friday) Having a pretty good idea where it was going, and that there was no punch line hidden later on, I was able to relax and enjoy the process more than I did when reading "The Goal". Although reading ofThe Goal was more engrossing. From this reading I got a better understanding of his approach.

03/13/2006 I reread the epilog this evening before starting another book of his that looks like a sequel to this one.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good follow up of the goal, where we follow the protagonist, Alex, almost a decade in the future as upper manager of Unico. The purpose of this book is to introduce a theoretical applied example of the TOC "thinking tools," which is mostly a bunch of logical trees for solving complex problems. Although i think these are a good set of tools to have in your management tool box, they're not as ubiquitous as the Theory of Constraints. The main problem is that it assumes similar issues to forecasting: that the agent constructing such logical trees are rational and have access to all information needed to avoid local optima. It also ignores the role of complexity, in that most events cannot be logically delineated into cause and effect relationships, irrelevant on how it's broken down. Any attempt to try will ultimately result in local optima. I think Peter Senge's work on Systems Thinking touches on this better than i can articulate. Nevertheless, it made me want to know more about the thinking processes and to add such tools to solving localised problems, especially those related to local process design.

[Harshal Patil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book because it presented how you can start with seemingly difficult problems and solve them. It didn't focus on spending more money or finding groundbreaking innovations, but on understanding your customers, analyzing your data, and connecting the dots between customer needs and your products. Those are the things that I like to do. The book emphasized the importance of market segmentation, pricing, and creating win-win situations. The book drove home the importance of these points.

I bought the Kindle and the Audible versions because I wanted to examine the cloud diagrams closely. Later, I also studied the undesirable effects and the "if-then" method of reading these diagrams. I am applying these approaches in my work discussions.

I rate the impact of this book as 4 out of 5 because it provides immediate actionable steps. It's not a 5/5 impact yet on me because I haven't succeeded in encouraging my teams to use it fully, and it hasn't become second nature to me yet. I'm working towards that goal.

[Koen V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vervolg op het doel, wat dezelfde hoofdpersoon volgt die nu voor andere uitdagingen komt te staan.
Inmiddels chefke voor 3 bedrijven die allemaal succesvol lopen. Zo succesvol, dat ze allemaal overcapaciteit hebben. De bedrijven worden verkocht door hogere hand, dus wat kan er gedaan worden om maximale waarde voor de bedrijven te krijgen?
Je wordt in het verhaal meegenomen in de gedachtegang van Alex en consorten, en ziet hierin waar hij tegenaan loopt. Niet maximaal produceren en prijzenoorlog, maar kijken naar de behoeftes van de klant lijkt de oplossing. Hun helpen in lage voorraden en daarmee minder kosten, blijkt de beste oplossing.
Maar vooral hoe hij tot zijn oplossingen komt is mooi uitgetekend in het boek. Decision trees die de conflicten uittekenen, maken dat het overzichtelijk wordt wat het probleem is en waar de oplossing uit voort kan komen. Een goeie om is zelf te testen als ik ergens een uitdaging/conflict heb

[Janani · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's Not Luck aka The Goal 2 checks in on Alex Rogo 6 years after the story of The Goal ends. Alex is now an EVP, in charge of the diversified companies division of UniCo. He's been responsible for taking companies in the red and turning them into breakeven/low profit territory. But UniCo has a cash flow problem, and they want to sell off the diversified group companies. Alex is faced with a dilemma - if he can't improve the companies quickly, he has nothing to recommend him to a new job. And if he does improve them, he's out of a job once his companies are sold. What should he do?

Goldratt packs this book with a lot more of his thinking processes, and these are more generic and helpful that the ones in the first book.

He's certainly not a master of prose, and he tends to tell a lot instead of showing, but it's a quick enough read and he makes the ideas seem so easy to apply.

[Jordi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mooi vervolg op het boek ‘Het Doel’. Het mooie is dat je door de verhaallijn veel uit het boek meepikt. Geen saai theoretisch boek met droge stof en dat maakt het ook interessant. De problemen waar de hoofdpersoon mee te maken krijgt worden elke keer met het maken van conflictdiagrammen opgelost. Op deze manier zorgt Alex Rogo er voor dat de onderdelen van het bedrijf waar hij verantwoordelijk voor is met de maximale winst uiteindelijk worden verkocht.

Wat ik van dit boek heb geleerd is dat je goed de tijd moet nemen als je voor een bepaald probleem staat en dat het maken van een conflictdiagram kan helpen tot de oplossing te komen. Het lijkt wel een beetje op de 5x ‘waarom’ vraag. Het helpt om tot de kern van een probleem te komen.

Samenvattend in twee woorden: conflictdiagrammen maken.

[Ahmed Awad · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the transformative experience of reading ‘The Goal’ by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, I had high expectations for his follow-up book, ‘It’s Not Luck’. However, I found that it didn’t quite live up to those expectations.

While ‘It’s Not Luck’ continues the journey of the protagonist, Alex Rogo, and introduces more of Goldratt’s Thinking Process techniques, it didn’t resonate with me as much as ‘The Goal’ did. The narrative didn’t feel as engaging, and the lessons didn’t seem as immediately applicable1.

The book does offer some interesting insights and expands on the Theory of Constraints (TOC) introduced in ‘The Goal’. It provides a deeper understanding of some TOC tools and applications, like the Thinking Processes and the TOC solutions for Marketing, Distribution, and Strategy2. However, I found the presentation of these concepts to be less compelling compared to ‘The Goal’.

[Andrew Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed "It's Not Luck", as much if not more than the first book "The Goal". Having read John Kotter's books on change management using animal fables to teach business concepts, 'business fiction' (as I call it) is fast becoming one of my favourite things out there!

The capacity to teach really very technical and complex strategic concepts through storytelling is such an enjoyable form of learning and should be adopted by far more authors! In this book we learn a great deal about Thinking Processes that can help you outline, explore and solve problems across any industry. I've yet to put the concepts into practice, but I certainly plan to have a play with the methods of identifying bottlenecks, lucrative marketing solutions and much more!

[Taras Fedorov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книжка, про протиріччя, обмеження і універсальні способи їхнього вирішення.
Читається легко, єдине, що псує - неприховане самовихваляння, і якась неприродність діалогів.

Автору вдається на пальцях пояснити доволі складні та абстрактні речі. І побудувати +/- цікавий роман на стику логістики, маркетингу та корпоративної возні. Це вже письменницьке досягнення.

Описані діаграми та процеси мислення: оригінальні , корисні та формалізовані. Не варто їх сприймати як срібні кулі (хоча автор це нав'язливо проштовхує). Тим не менше, описати, сформулювати проблему/рішення вони допоможуть. А тому 100% користь принесуть.

Книжку варто читати після першої частини людямь методичним, системним і при цьому творчо налаштованим на пошук рішень.