[JLJ - The Choice is a the continuing story of a successful consultant unraveling his thinking process,
told as a dialog between Eli Goldratt and his daughter Efrat. Goldratt theorizes that his process of thinking with a clear
vision can be applied to every kind of problem, and stems from simple concepts like forming cause and effect maps.]
p.5-6 Hesitantly, I answer, "You're always the scientist. You are constantly figuring out how the world
is ticking, trying to verbalize the cause-and-effect connections - on any subject, in any situation," I continue more confidently,
"For you, everything is like a prototype. No wonder situations that trigger disappointment and frustration for others are,
for you, a source of energy."
p.6 knowing the causes and effects that govern a situation is the best preparation... If
someone isn't prepared, then he won't see most of the opportunities.
p.8 "The more complicated the situation seems to be, the simpler the solution must be,"
he recites. It's one of his favorite phrases.
p.8 There is nothing wrong with people's brainpower; there is something very wrong with people's
perception of reality. The biggest obstacle is that people grasp reality as complex when actually it is surprisingly
simple.
p.10-11 you also claim that clear thinking helps to generate opportunities... You also have to show that
through the simple logical map you have built, new opportunities are opened.
p.30 So, meaningful opportunities are open when one sees how to overcome something that blocks one;
when one is able to come up with modest breakthroughs.
p.32 Father [JLJ Goldratt's daughter Efrat is referring to her father] claims that the obstacle
that prevents us from thinking clearly is our distorted perception of reality... once he got them to concentrate
only on the most important phenomena... the core problem was evident - the fact that everything is based on the forecast and
the forecast is awful... Probably I would try to explore ways to improve the forecast.
p.38 Do you accept the statement, "tell me how you measure me and I'll tell you how I will behave"?
p.44-45 when we examine an organization, an entity that is composed of many different people,
the complexity is overwhelming.
The claim is that in all these situations there is Inherent Simplicity. The simplicity
will emerge when all those numerous components and all those immense details are all connected through simple cause-and-effect
relationships, and when they all stem from just a very few elements.
p.81 I do recognize that all good solutions have one thing in common - they are obvious, but only
in hindsight. Always, once I finally verbalize a good solution to a major problem, I'm disappointed with myself for
wasting so much time before I reached the obvious.
p.123 "You asked how one practices thinking clearly. Here is the answer. Efrat, to practice
you don't choose a subject and free up the time to do a full analysis. That is not the right approach. You should
use any opportunity to try and decipher the cause and effect. Be it a casual conversation with a stranger, a comment from
your husband, or something that you are reading. You said that you are constantly thinking, and you are right, but
that implies that you should try to constantly think clearly."
p.154 Dr. W. Edwards Deming repeatedly said that it is much more difficult to rework something than to do
it right the first time.
p.156 logic doesn't exist in a vacuum. To perform any logical step we need to jump-start
and constantly feed the logic with connections that are raised by our intuition. Haven't you noticed that the only
way we can come up with a hypothesis or with a predicted effect is by intuition? And how do you expose an assumption?
Again by intuition... And intuition stems from emotion.
p.157 [Eli Goldratt speaking] I'm one of the most paranoid people I know. I never leave things to chance.
I always try to make sure that the deck is stacked in my favor.
