First published in 1984 by first-time author Eliyahu Goldratt, The Goal is a first person narrative that teaches the reader about The Theory of Constraints through the eyes of the protagonist, Alex Rogo. The Theory of Constraints is an approach to production, product and plant management that Goldratt even applies to Rogo’s personal life.

These results are based on a search for top Google results posted during the 2020 calendar year:

#1 Google Result: Marlo Yonocruz Review

Yonocruz‘s book review is on his personal blog, and he gives a great summary of the book. Like many readers, he appreciates the novel approach to a business problem framed through a novel.

He hits on many of the top comments highlighted in other reviews:

• Productivity
• Hiking Example – References to Herbie in Chapters 13 and Chapter 15
• Bottlenecks
• Utilization – Activating a resource is not utilizing a resource, Hilton Smyth! – Chapter 31
• Purpose / Goals
• Batch Size & Lead Times – Chapter 28
• Process Improvement
• Flowlines & Lean

He closes with one big take-away that has always been one of my favorite parts of The Goal;

“Identify the goal and make sure what you do helps you move toward that goal“

Yonocruz on Goldratt

#2 Google Result: Company Review by Velocity Scheduling

Corporate reviews of The Goal are common – especially with Goldratt Publishing and so many ToC consulting firms basing their work on the book. This is a great review, it begins by highlighting that The Goal is very likely the top selling business book of all time, doing even more sales than the 15 million attributed to How to Win Friends and Influence People.

As a scheduling company, the reviewer focuses on two topics –

• Drum buffer rope
• Throughput accounting

They go on to do a short chapter-by-chapter summary that highlights the main characters and the personal journey that Rogo goes through to internalize the main lessons of the Theory of Constraints. They’ve also attached some great .pdfs and other visuals to help people who are new to ToC understand the main concepts.

#3 Google Result: A Spam Account and/or Unsafe Link

Come on now! Really?!?

#4 Google Result: Apple Book Reviews

The top ad for the site was for the audiobook from Audible.com, advertised as ‘free with a trial’ and ‘yours to keep’. Interesting to see the top ad, but in an unpaid (as far as we can tell) spot is from Apple.

#5 Google Result: An Update to Allen Cheng’s Review

The Allen Cheng team has really stepped up their review, which now includes a chapter-by-chapter summary, as well as video summaries of each book. With all the new detail, this summary could really approach the popularity of the MAAW review written by Hourigan in 2001. At nearly 15,000 words, that’s 3x what this review and summary stood at in 2018 (Most Popular Guides to The Goal).

Closing

My original chapter-by-chapter guide was published in 2018, and I’ve enjoyed using holidays to refresh the material for others, and to refresh it for myself.

“Every chance you get to apply the Theory of Constraints, you make your own life, and the world around you better.”

Fred Lybrand