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Summary: Useful lessons in competitive strategy taught in fiction.
Review: Review of "It's Not Luck" by Eliyahu M. Goldratt:This story is about marketing and competitive strategy. Alex Rogo, Mr. Goldratt's fictional hero, has to save three of his companies and hundreds of employees from the chopping block of corporate divestiture by applying logic and persuasive skills. Mr. Goldratt conducts his unique style of logical examination in a field different from that of the "The Goal", his first and more famous book. While "The Goal" says run your production operation for cash, "It's Not Luck" says the value of a product, or an entire business, is in the eye of the buyer, not the supplier. A management book without the jargon and trendiness you get elsewhere.
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Summary: Thought provoking
Review: simple yet not simplistic methods for "doing the undoable" in developing a ground breaking marketing strategy
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Summary: Not Shakespeare... but it is good brain food for business!
Review: Sure the dialogue is forced and, as with all of Goldratt's books, the information presented is not new. The gift is placing business principles in a context of a story with enough examples that one can extrapolate simple, logical and, powerful practices from it.
I find that Goldratt novels provide simple frameworks that can be easily adapted and provide guidance to business thinking and process. For instance, from The Goal I constantly use and teach the three money measures for helping people understand the true impact of a proposed change in their business processes or automation.
It's Not Luck is a great springboard for considering root cause analysis, program management for organizational change, sales tactics developed from customer needs, and generally good business thought processes for leadership.
When you consider how many managers and executives have made it into the business world with out the MBA, this is great starter information that can have the "formal" business labels attached to it later. Additionally, when you consider how many people went through B school but do not remember to apply what they learned, this is a simple reminder and a tutor for implementation.
I highly recommend any of the TOC novels these reasons.
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Summary: not just a business book! -- A must read
Review: Teaches how to build an evaporating cloud to analyze conflicts. Teaches how to build current reality trees to find core problems-- and future reality trees to find the best solution. I loved reading this book. I am considering getting a masters degree in TOC.
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Summary: The best of the Goldratt bunch
Review: The Goal changed my thinking and gave me a set of tools I could mingle with Lean to realize real improvements in processes. This book takes TOC to the enterprise level and introduces new problem solving techniques. In my opinion, this is the best Goldratt book yet.
Hope it helps.
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Summary: Almost Perfect
Review: This book describes Goldratt's method of solving problems, resolving conflicts, and how to apply his methods to sales, marketing (there is a difference), and general business management.As a novel, it doesn't really hold my attention. But the ideas do. Presenting them as a book is a, ahem, novel way of doing it. It holds my attention better than reading a how-to book. The process is hinted at, but not completely described. This is different than "The Goal," which came right out and told you what to do. I think that Goldratt was trying to promote his consulting company as much as sell a book.
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Summary: An Excellent easy approach
Review: This book is about common sense. This book is the second "Must Read" for Industrial engineers and MBA students in the Eliyahu Goldratt books.
It talks about the possibilities of the state of the art distribution networks to lead to new marketing solutions. Although this book talks about marketing solutions but it is targeted for managers coming out of manufacturing toward upper level management. Some of the solutions are common sense, but the problem it reflect a lot of the problems in the outside world, were commonsense is not common any more.
I recommend reading this book after reading "The Goal".
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Summary: Very instructive book
Review: This book is very nice. The last book, the goal, tells me the thoery of the constraints. This one tells me how to analyze problems in different situations. Buy it, you won't regret.
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Summary: Great Book - But not for everyone
Review: This book will give you an excellent understanding of when to use the thinking processes. If you want to be able to apply the thinking processes without attending a seminar, you need three things: 1) It's Not Luck 2)Thinking for a Change by Lisa Scheinkopf (or one of the other thinking process books, but this one is the best) 3) Practice. This requires a significant amount of time.
If you do not plan on attending a seminar or taking the time to read and practice the more detailed how-to material on the thinking processes, this book will be a waste of time. The story isn't as universally appealing as The Goal; it is about understanding when to apply the thinking processes and major pitfalls to avoid. If you decide this book isn't for you, I would still recommend finding a write up of the disolving cloud (aka conflict cloud) method. This is the one tool from It's Not Luck that really is for everbody.
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Summary: Rigor made Rational - an introduction for the textbook
Review: This book, in novel form, is a description of the "Thinking Process" of Theory of Constraints. This Thinking Process is really a bookkeeping process to provide rigor in rational thought. The story line is a bit weak, but as others have observed, it makes reading the dry processes fun. Once you have read this book, and are convinced that moving from a current reality [tree] to a future reality [tree] with the clouds removed is going to require the construction of a transition plan [tree], but you need some help, read "Thinking for a Change", by Lisa J. Scheinkopf - ISBN: 1574441019
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