The Goal: a process of Ongoing Improvement

DW: Would you have discovered this breakthrough had you not been
exposed to Goldratt’s theories?
PH: First of all, I wouldn’t have known how to attack the problem. Since I
was working at the printing company and my nephew was working at the
office supplies company, I never expected that we would change roles.
Nevertheless, I knew how much loss they made. And by then I was so

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convinced that just by applying Theory of Constraints, I would figure out a
way to solve the problem. It took me something like three or four weeks to
see the light and understand what was going on and how to solve it. I
survived that month by sitting back and saying, “Okay, no panic, no panic,
let’s not be hasty. As long as we don’t have a breakthrough idea I’m not
going to make any changes.” I was just sitting back and thinking and
discussing with people how we could solve the problem, until we solved it.
And that’s one of the good things about theory of constraints. You know in
these cases that eventually you will come up with a breakthrough idea.
DW: You have only to find it.
PH: Yes, and I became better and better at it. It takes Eli about five minutes
to find the constraint and how to brake it. In most cases, I can find the same
within a week. Compare it to just doing more of the same. I very often use
this funny story about two guys on a safari. And after a couple of days they
hear the first tiger and they think, well, great! So they go for their guns and
discover they forgot their bullets. So one of them puts his pack down and
grabs his running shoes, and the other guy starts laughing: “Do you think you
can outrun the tiger?” He says, “I don’t need to outrun the tiger, I only have
to outrun you!”
Interview with Eli Goldratt continued . . .
DW: Can you give me another example? Of a service company that does