Discussion Forum > The Goal, by EM Goldratt
AQ in a foundry. Make that QA and QC. QA = Quality Assurance. QC = Quality Control. QA is more modern term, implying proactive.
April 25, 2019 at 21:33 |
Cricket
Cricket
Cricket - thanks for the summary!
<< Too many people, especially today, think that if they can logically go from A to B, they don't need to test it. I think the Socratic method is an effective way to teach, but it needs to be heavily balanced by actual testing of the results. Too many people skip the testing step. >>
I think this is a valid criticism of how TOC is often implemented. Sometimes practitioners can develop gigantic logical trees. This greatly increases the risk of failure of the solution - just a few errors (of logic or fact) can invalidate the whole tree.
However, I don’t think it’s valid for The Goal, or how Goldratt himself implemented his ideas. The Goal shows a continuous process of analyzing the situation logically; deciding where to focus; making some change; assessing the results; and then repeating the process. The protagonists repeated this process several times, often going back to correct previous mistakes or improve on their original ideas. This core process (the Five Focusing Steps) is quite compatible with iterative discovery and testing.
<< Most of the insights were predictable. >>
Many people with manufacturing experience, who read the book nowadays, say that most of it is just common sense - everyone knows about managing bottlenecks. But this isn’t true in every factory, and wasn’t true at all in the mid-1980s when the book was introduced. It’s common sense now mainly because of Goldratt and this book. 🙂 (It has sold millions of copies and has been translated into many languages.)
Even so, many of the deeper implications are often not in common practice. The biggest one, I think, is the idea of the bottleneck controlling throughout for the whole operation. You mention another - how flow can be dramatically improved, and inventory reduced, by reducing batch sizes even when it increases setups in non-bottlenecks. The implications are huge but completely neglected by many managers.
But for me, the biggest insights and ruminations come from applying the key concepts to non-manufacturing domains - such as time management, for example. It was quite thought provoking, for example, to consider that there could be a single bottleneck in my personal world, and if I could identity and control that bottleneck, it could lead to very significant improvements.
This is why The Goal has inspired so many other books. Goldratt himself wrote several more business novels applying the concepts to marketing, finance, supply chain, wholesale, retail, and service industries. Gene Kim (The Phoenix Project) and Clarke Ching (Rolling Rocks Downhill) applied it to IT.
<< He says there are a few more principles. I wish he'd included them. I also wish he'd included a summary in an appendix. >>
All the later editions include the Five Focusing Steps as an appendix:
1 - Identify the constraint.
2 - Decide how to exploit the constraint.
3 - Subordinate everything else to the above decision.
4 - Elevate the constraint.
5 - If the constraint moves, start over from 1.
But for a complete set of principles on the factory implementation, you need a book like Goldratt's "The Race", or the anthology "The Theory of Constraints Handbook". It's a pretty deep well.
<< I recommend it to junior engineers, accountants and managers. It's a quick read overall, with maybe a dozen concepts they might need to think about to get their head around (especially if their other mentors don't believe them). >>
I recommend it to everyone, LOL! I've given away several copies.
<< Too many people, especially today, think that if they can logically go from A to B, they don't need to test it. I think the Socratic method is an effective way to teach, but it needs to be heavily balanced by actual testing of the results. Too many people skip the testing step. >>
I think this is a valid criticism of how TOC is often implemented. Sometimes practitioners can develop gigantic logical trees. This greatly increases the risk of failure of the solution - just a few errors (of logic or fact) can invalidate the whole tree.
However, I don’t think it’s valid for The Goal, or how Goldratt himself implemented his ideas. The Goal shows a continuous process of analyzing the situation logically; deciding where to focus; making some change; assessing the results; and then repeating the process. The protagonists repeated this process several times, often going back to correct previous mistakes or improve on their original ideas. This core process (the Five Focusing Steps) is quite compatible with iterative discovery and testing.
<< Most of the insights were predictable. >>
Many people with manufacturing experience, who read the book nowadays, say that most of it is just common sense - everyone knows about managing bottlenecks. But this isn’t true in every factory, and wasn’t true at all in the mid-1980s when the book was introduced. It’s common sense now mainly because of Goldratt and this book. 🙂 (It has sold millions of copies and has been translated into many languages.)
Even so, many of the deeper implications are often not in common practice. The biggest one, I think, is the idea of the bottleneck controlling throughout for the whole operation. You mention another - how flow can be dramatically improved, and inventory reduced, by reducing batch sizes even when it increases setups in non-bottlenecks. The implications are huge but completely neglected by many managers.
But for me, the biggest insights and ruminations come from applying the key concepts to non-manufacturing domains - such as time management, for example. It was quite thought provoking, for example, to consider that there could be a single bottleneck in my personal world, and if I could identity and control that bottleneck, it could lead to very significant improvements.
This is why The Goal has inspired so many other books. Goldratt himself wrote several more business novels applying the concepts to marketing, finance, supply chain, wholesale, retail, and service industries. Gene Kim (The Phoenix Project) and Clarke Ching (Rolling Rocks Downhill) applied it to IT.
<< He says there are a few more principles. I wish he'd included them. I also wish he'd included a summary in an appendix. >>
All the later editions include the Five Focusing Steps as an appendix:
1 - Identify the constraint.
2 - Decide how to exploit the constraint.
3 - Subordinate everything else to the above decision.
4 - Elevate the constraint.
5 - If the constraint moves, start over from 1.
But for a complete set of principles on the factory implementation, you need a book like Goldratt's "The Race", or the anthology "The Theory of Constraints Handbook". It's a pretty deep well.
<< I recommend it to junior engineers, accountants and managers. It's a quick read overall, with maybe a dozen concepts they might need to think about to get their head around (especially if their other mentors don't believe them). >>
I recommend it to everyone, LOL! I've given away several copies.
May 1, 2019 at 5:36 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
<< It was quite thought provoking, for example, to consider that there could be a single bottleneck in my personal world, and if I could identity and control that bottleneck, it could lead to very significant improvements. >>
Example?
Example?
May 1, 2019 at 15:41 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu -
<< Example? >>
Sure.
Let's say you spend a lot of time reading blogs or magazines or books or whatever. You feel you gain something from this. But too often, it feels unfocused, a waste of time. (Others have been discussing this here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2738537#post2739149 )
For me, I follow a cycle like this:
1 - Get clear on my goals (not top-down, but rather looking at my current priorities and conflicts and seeing how the goal emerges from that)
2 - Ponder what is the main thing I can do to make progress on that goal, and/or the main obstacle blocking me from achieving it
3 - Focus on that ONE THING that will make the biggest difference toward my goal.
4 - Eliminate everything else that does not contribute to this. But if eliminating something will cause new problems, then just reduce it to whatever habitual maintenance you need to do to ensure it doesn't cause new problems.
5 - By focusing all your improvement efforts like this, you can get breakthroughs pretty quickly. Once you've got a breakthrough, and allowed it some time to play out, then start again from (1.)
Where does reading blogs etc. fit into this?
At some point, I came to the realization that it doesn't.
If it contributes to my solving that one core problem, getting that one big breakthrough that is the one thing blocking me from achieving my one overarching goal -- then great! Let me have more of it!
But if it's not contributing to this central constraint, then any feeling of improvement it brings is just an illusion. So I dropped it.
At first, this was extremely liberating. I felt very free. There was no "fear of missing out". It broke me of that habit almost immediately.
But then I also started to feel a little out of touch with what was happening in the world. So I took a peek back into my Feedly reader. And there was stuff accumulating there. OK, great. I can go read an article when I have some downtime. But if I find myself spending too much time there, aimlessly clicking through articles, then this is a red flag that I have lost track of my overall goal and working on the constraint that controls my ability to achieve that goal.
Actually I think this ties into your Kaizen experiments. ( http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2739425 ). "Lean" often recommends many local Kaizen improvements. These create local optimizations that feel like real improvements. But they often fail to deliver results for the overall system - which is why many companies eventually abandon the Kaizen model.
But if the Kaizen effort is focused on your current systemic constraint -- it can have a fast, dramatic, positive, and lasting impact. Theory-of-Constraints tells you where to focus. Kaizen gives you many tools how to get "compound interest" on many small improvements. When they are combined it can be very powerful.
<< Example? >>
Sure.
Let's say you spend a lot of time reading blogs or magazines or books or whatever. You feel you gain something from this. But too often, it feels unfocused, a waste of time. (Others have been discussing this here: http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2738537#post2739149 )
For me, I follow a cycle like this:
1 - Get clear on my goals (not top-down, but rather looking at my current priorities and conflicts and seeing how the goal emerges from that)
2 - Ponder what is the main thing I can do to make progress on that goal, and/or the main obstacle blocking me from achieving it
3 - Focus on that ONE THING that will make the biggest difference toward my goal.
4 - Eliminate everything else that does not contribute to this. But if eliminating something will cause new problems, then just reduce it to whatever habitual maintenance you need to do to ensure it doesn't cause new problems.
5 - By focusing all your improvement efforts like this, you can get breakthroughs pretty quickly. Once you've got a breakthrough, and allowed it some time to play out, then start again from (1.)
Where does reading blogs etc. fit into this?
At some point, I came to the realization that it doesn't.
If it contributes to my solving that one core problem, getting that one big breakthrough that is the one thing blocking me from achieving my one overarching goal -- then great! Let me have more of it!
But if it's not contributing to this central constraint, then any feeling of improvement it brings is just an illusion. So I dropped it.
At first, this was extremely liberating. I felt very free. There was no "fear of missing out". It broke me of that habit almost immediately.
But then I also started to feel a little out of touch with what was happening in the world. So I took a peek back into my Feedly reader. And there was stuff accumulating there. OK, great. I can go read an article when I have some downtime. But if I find myself spending too much time there, aimlessly clicking through articles, then this is a red flag that I have lost track of my overall goal and working on the constraint that controls my ability to achieve that goal.
Actually I think this ties into your Kaizen experiments. ( http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2739425 ). "Lean" often recommends many local Kaizen improvements. These create local optimizations that feel like real improvements. But they often fail to deliver results for the overall system - which is why many companies eventually abandon the Kaizen model.
But if the Kaizen effort is focused on your current systemic constraint -- it can have a fast, dramatic, positive, and lasting impact. Theory-of-Constraints tells you where to focus. Kaizen gives you many tools how to get "compound interest" on many small improvements. When they are combined it can be very powerful.
May 5, 2019 at 20:32 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
Here is some more explanation.
Goldratt's central thesis is that the only way to improve the whole system is to improve the performance of the system's bottleneck. The bottleneck controls the throughput of the entire system.
His thesis has a powerful corollary: improvements made anywhere else are an illusion.
Local improvements (on a non-constraint) may provide local benefits, but they don't improve the performance of the system, or help the system achieve its purpose. In fact, local optimizations often *obstruct* the performance of the system as a whole.
In the factory, there is one goal: make money. To improve the factory performance, find the bottleneck, and improve it's performance. And subordinate everything else in the factory to ensuring that this happens. This can have quick and dramatic impact on throughput for the whole factory.
In personal time management, it can be more challenging to see those kinds of improvements. I believe the reason is that we tend to operate as though we have many goals. When there are many goals, there are many bottlenecks -- each goal has its own bottleneck.
This is like a factory that has two separate production lines, each with its own purchasing, manufacturing, and distribution. They both have the same goal -- make money for the company. But they go about it independently. When they are substantially separated like this, then each production line will have its own bottleneck. When you look at each production line as its own system, you can see that they each have its own bottleneck. Many independent goals = many bottlenecks.
But in reality, it is still one company with one overall goal -- maintain overall cashflow, ROI, etc. From this perspective, the real systemic bottlenecks are not necessarily in the factories. The bottlenecks will show up when the company is making overall marketing and investment decisions -- the factories are no longer independent from this perspective, but are interdependent elements of a larger system. When you look at it from this perspective, you start to see the interplay between all the different departments of the company -- the factories, as well as marketing, sales, distribution, purchasing, IT, etc., and how the company policies and practices impact the overall throughput. And somewhere in this network of interdependent elements, there lurks a constraint that controls the throughput of the whole system.
According to Goldratt, in such a complex environment, the problem is not typically a resource bottleneck. The problem is all the misalignment between departments. (He does not discuss this so much in The Goal, but goes into depth in other books and presentations.) Each department functions as its own silo, with its own goals and measurements, optimized for its own performance. They are NOT optimized for the one, overarching goal of the whole company. There are usually persistent conflicts and vicious cycles that cause these problems to arise, persist, and get worse over time.
However, one of Goldratt's key insights is that the same theoretical principles can be extended to this kind of environment. Instead of looking for the resource bottleneck, we need to look for the vicious cycle at the root of the misalignment. There is some deeply-rooted conflict, usually expressed as a vicious cycle, that is the root cause blocking the company from breaking through to the next level of profit. There are many symptoms of the chronic dysfunction - but we should not attack the symptoms. We need to attack the core problem that causes the symptoms to arise and persist. When we attack the core problem, a whole range of undesirable effects can be eliminated at once. When we attack other problems, we only see local marginal improvements - but no real breakthroughs.
The core problem is analogous to the bottleneck. It is similar to a constraint especially in this sense: if you focus attention on OTHER problems, it will have only negligible or negative impact for the system as a whole. You will only see big improvements if you attack the core problem.
Our personal lives are similar to a company with many silos, each silo optimizing for its own performance, neglecting the overall system, the overall goal.
I said earlier that we operate as though we have many goals. In fact I think we often labor under the illusion that we have many independent goals. When we have many different goals, then we create all kinds of problems for ourselves. The goals come into conflict, and we spend a lot of time resolving those conflicts. If the conflicts are unresolved, they create vicious cycles that cause the problems to become worse and worse.
Common examples: Work vs Life ("work/life balance). Security vs Aspiration. Personal Aspiration vs Family. Spouse vs Kids. Save for retirement vs pay off debt. Family vs Community. Family vs Hobbies. etc.
But like I said, it's an illusion that we have many independent goals. When we pause for a moment to think about it, our goals are all related to each other. Look at "work/life balance", for example. The common wisdom is we have to find the right balance, to give our careers and our families enough of what they need to keep them both happy. It's in the phrase itself: "work/life BALANCE". However, for most of us, there is a definite hierarchy here. Either we are working to provide for our families -- the reason we work is to have an income, to provide for our families and for ourselves. Or or professional life is our priority, we see it as the primary way we contribute to society and find personal fulfillment, and we have our family to provide mutual support for our larger professional motivations. I fall in the first category -- most people I know are the same. But many fall into the second category.
The thing to notice is there is a hierarchy of goals, not a balance. There is mutual dependence, but the goals are not equally important. One of them serves the other -- or together they serve some larger goal. For me, with work-life balance, the larger goal is my family. Work provides an income to support the family. If I had a way to generate the income without the job, and allowed me more time with the family, then I'd take it.
We can map out ALL our goals in this way - to discover the underlying hierarchy of goals. And one begins to discover that there is always some ultimate larger goal to which all the other goals are subordinate somehow.
To discover these goals, I believe it's best to start from the current pressures and demands and desires, and then let the network of goals emerge from this -- rather than starting top down, imagining what you think your overarching goal *should* be. I think this is very much in line with Mark's "standing out" guidelines for most of his systems. If you start with the current reality, and just let the goal emerge, it's more real and more alive and more connected with your current reality.
And as soon as you know your one large overarching goal, it's much easier to figure out the constraint - whether it's a resource constraint, or a vicious cycle / core problem kind of constraint. When the system has one and only one ultimate goal, then the system also has one constraint, or rarely two, as in the Goal novel.
Focusing improvement efforts on that constraint is the way to get breakthroughs and really change one's world.
Goldratt's central thesis is that the only way to improve the whole system is to improve the performance of the system's bottleneck. The bottleneck controls the throughput of the entire system.
His thesis has a powerful corollary: improvements made anywhere else are an illusion.
Local improvements (on a non-constraint) may provide local benefits, but they don't improve the performance of the system, or help the system achieve its purpose. In fact, local optimizations often *obstruct* the performance of the system as a whole.
In the factory, there is one goal: make money. To improve the factory performance, find the bottleneck, and improve it's performance. And subordinate everything else in the factory to ensuring that this happens. This can have quick and dramatic impact on throughput for the whole factory.
In personal time management, it can be more challenging to see those kinds of improvements. I believe the reason is that we tend to operate as though we have many goals. When there are many goals, there are many bottlenecks -- each goal has its own bottleneck.
This is like a factory that has two separate production lines, each with its own purchasing, manufacturing, and distribution. They both have the same goal -- make money for the company. But they go about it independently. When they are substantially separated like this, then each production line will have its own bottleneck. When you look at each production line as its own system, you can see that they each have its own bottleneck. Many independent goals = many bottlenecks.
But in reality, it is still one company with one overall goal -- maintain overall cashflow, ROI, etc. From this perspective, the real systemic bottlenecks are not necessarily in the factories. The bottlenecks will show up when the company is making overall marketing and investment decisions -- the factories are no longer independent from this perspective, but are interdependent elements of a larger system. When you look at it from this perspective, you start to see the interplay between all the different departments of the company -- the factories, as well as marketing, sales, distribution, purchasing, IT, etc., and how the company policies and practices impact the overall throughput. And somewhere in this network of interdependent elements, there lurks a constraint that controls the throughput of the whole system.
According to Goldratt, in such a complex environment, the problem is not typically a resource bottleneck. The problem is all the misalignment between departments. (He does not discuss this so much in The Goal, but goes into depth in other books and presentations.) Each department functions as its own silo, with its own goals and measurements, optimized for its own performance. They are NOT optimized for the one, overarching goal of the whole company. There are usually persistent conflicts and vicious cycles that cause these problems to arise, persist, and get worse over time.
However, one of Goldratt's key insights is that the same theoretical principles can be extended to this kind of environment. Instead of looking for the resource bottleneck, we need to look for the vicious cycle at the root of the misalignment. There is some deeply-rooted conflict, usually expressed as a vicious cycle, that is the root cause blocking the company from breaking through to the next level of profit. There are many symptoms of the chronic dysfunction - but we should not attack the symptoms. We need to attack the core problem that causes the symptoms to arise and persist. When we attack the core problem, a whole range of undesirable effects can be eliminated at once. When we attack other problems, we only see local marginal improvements - but no real breakthroughs.
The core problem is analogous to the bottleneck. It is similar to a constraint especially in this sense: if you focus attention on OTHER problems, it will have only negligible or negative impact for the system as a whole. You will only see big improvements if you attack the core problem.
Our personal lives are similar to a company with many silos, each silo optimizing for its own performance, neglecting the overall system, the overall goal.
I said earlier that we operate as though we have many goals. In fact I think we often labor under the illusion that we have many independent goals. When we have many different goals, then we create all kinds of problems for ourselves. The goals come into conflict, and we spend a lot of time resolving those conflicts. If the conflicts are unresolved, they create vicious cycles that cause the problems to become worse and worse.
Common examples: Work vs Life ("work/life balance). Security vs Aspiration. Personal Aspiration vs Family. Spouse vs Kids. Save for retirement vs pay off debt. Family vs Community. Family vs Hobbies. etc.
But like I said, it's an illusion that we have many independent goals. When we pause for a moment to think about it, our goals are all related to each other. Look at "work/life balance", for example. The common wisdom is we have to find the right balance, to give our careers and our families enough of what they need to keep them both happy. It's in the phrase itself: "work/life BALANCE". However, for most of us, there is a definite hierarchy here. Either we are working to provide for our families -- the reason we work is to have an income, to provide for our families and for ourselves. Or or professional life is our priority, we see it as the primary way we contribute to society and find personal fulfillment, and we have our family to provide mutual support for our larger professional motivations. I fall in the first category -- most people I know are the same. But many fall into the second category.
The thing to notice is there is a hierarchy of goals, not a balance. There is mutual dependence, but the goals are not equally important. One of them serves the other -- or together they serve some larger goal. For me, with work-life balance, the larger goal is my family. Work provides an income to support the family. If I had a way to generate the income without the job, and allowed me more time with the family, then I'd take it.
We can map out ALL our goals in this way - to discover the underlying hierarchy of goals. And one begins to discover that there is always some ultimate larger goal to which all the other goals are subordinate somehow.
To discover these goals, I believe it's best to start from the current pressures and demands and desires, and then let the network of goals emerge from this -- rather than starting top down, imagining what you think your overarching goal *should* be. I think this is very much in line with Mark's "standing out" guidelines for most of his systems. If you start with the current reality, and just let the goal emerge, it's more real and more alive and more connected with your current reality.
And as soon as you know your one large overarching goal, it's much easier to figure out the constraint - whether it's a resource constraint, or a vicious cycle / core problem kind of constraint. When the system has one and only one ultimate goal, then the system also has one constraint, or rarely two, as in the Goal novel.
Focusing improvement efforts on that constraint is the way to get breakthroughs and really change one's world.
May 5, 2019 at 21:30 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
That explanation helps. In my case I have my goals but I am not directly working on improving those. Well in fact I am. My primary goal is business oriented and I am putting effort into improving that as I work. But outside of work hours I'm focused more on foundational efforts. As one book cover puts it: Eat better sleep better exercise better think better. These all play into each other in a reinforcing loop to improve your capacity to work, love, live.
And decluttering. It doesn't directly improve work whatsoever. But done outside of work hours when my work energy is depleted, it is helpful. Seeing space improve helps with positive emotion and helps make this place more functional.
And decluttering. It doesn't directly improve work whatsoever. But done outside of work hours when my work energy is depleted, it is helpful. Seeing space improve helps with positive emotion and helps make this place more functional.
May 5, 2019 at 22:33 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
So it sounds like in your hierarchy of goals, among the things you mentioned, it works something like this.
You intuit a need for sleeping better - it seems to be holding you back on many levels. So you are trying to sleep better. This is one goal.
The sleep goal support the larger goal of "improved foundation". You are also considering other ways to improve your foundation.
You are already noticing this is having an impact on your work. So one of the implicit goals of having the "improved foundation" is to do better at work - whether it's feeling better during work hours, or doing better work, or being able to do more work, or whatever.
Decluttering seems to feed into the "improved foundation" goal. And it seems to clarify that the "improved foundation" goal is all about having more energy, more clarity, more positivity. And though there is no immediate impact on your work, the "improved foundation" does impact your work positively.
Presumably "love and live" find themselves in this hierarchy somewhere, but you haven't given enough clues for me to make an educated guess, so I'll just make a wild guess. I'm assuming that work exists to provide a livelihood, so you can support your life, so that you can have a life of love. Love is at the top. But that's just a guess obviously. Maybe there are other factors and dynamics at play.
So if this is the basic hierarchy, it seems like your intuition is guiding you to the Core Problem hindering you from achieving your goal of (presumably) better work life and better life overall, a life giving and receiving more love. (or something like that).
It makes sense that a "weak foundation" could be a core problem, having all kinds of negative effects, and creating all kinds of vicious cycles if not addressed. And presumably it was "sleep" that felt like the weakest link in the foundation. Once that is under control, maybe the foundation will be strong enough, and the constraint will move to some other area of your life. Or perhaps other elements of the foundation will need to be strengthened next (you mentioned eating and thinking).
Anyway, just an attempt to piece together the things you mentioned into the framework I described.
You intuit a need for sleeping better - it seems to be holding you back on many levels. So you are trying to sleep better. This is one goal.
The sleep goal support the larger goal of "improved foundation". You are also considering other ways to improve your foundation.
You are already noticing this is having an impact on your work. So one of the implicit goals of having the "improved foundation" is to do better at work - whether it's feeling better during work hours, or doing better work, or being able to do more work, or whatever.
Decluttering seems to feed into the "improved foundation" goal. And it seems to clarify that the "improved foundation" goal is all about having more energy, more clarity, more positivity. And though there is no immediate impact on your work, the "improved foundation" does impact your work positively.
Presumably "love and live" find themselves in this hierarchy somewhere, but you haven't given enough clues for me to make an educated guess, so I'll just make a wild guess. I'm assuming that work exists to provide a livelihood, so you can support your life, so that you can have a life of love. Love is at the top. But that's just a guess obviously. Maybe there are other factors and dynamics at play.
So if this is the basic hierarchy, it seems like your intuition is guiding you to the Core Problem hindering you from achieving your goal of (presumably) better work life and better life overall, a life giving and receiving more love. (or something like that).
It makes sense that a "weak foundation" could be a core problem, having all kinds of negative effects, and creating all kinds of vicious cycles if not addressed. And presumably it was "sleep" that felt like the weakest link in the foundation. Once that is under control, maybe the foundation will be strong enough, and the constraint will move to some other area of your life. Or perhaps other elements of the foundation will need to be strengthened next (you mentioned eating and thinking).
Anyway, just an attempt to piece together the things you mentioned into the framework I described.
May 5, 2019 at 23:09 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
Neat, thanks for expressing this in such an evocative way!
May 6, 2019 at 14:03 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
This reminds me of the first half of Rick Hanson's Hardwiring Happiness. All the food in the world won't solve loneliness, but many people don't look closely enough at their unhappiness to realize that the problem is loneliness.
Looking at things as a hierarchy (job supports family) is useful, but you have to be careful. If your job pays well, etc, but you hate it, is it really the best thing for your family? A job that pays a bit less, or has a shorter commute, might be better, if you come home less stressed.
Looking at things as a hierarchy (job supports family) is useful, but you have to be careful. If your job pays well, etc, but you hate it, is it really the best thing for your family? A job that pays a bit less, or has a shorter commute, might be better, if you come home less stressed.
May 8, 2019 at 2:53 |
Cricket
Cricket
Cricket -
<< Looking at things as a hierarchy (job supports family) is useful, but you have to be careful. If your job pays well, etc, but you hate it, is it really the best thing for your family? >>
The point of realizing there is a hierarchical relationship is to bring clarity to the situation, not mindless submission to the larger goal. If you realize there is a hierarchy here, then it actually makes it clearer that the job is not fulfilling its purpose of supporting the family. Just having this clarity -- that the job actually has a specific purpose -- is often enough to find the direction to a solution, to find a way out of the problem.
Without this clarity, it's easy to fall into many conflicts and traps. The misery at work can create stress, etc., which harms the family (and you). It also threatens the job itself - it can cause poor job performance and thus threaten the financial value of the job. To relieve the misery, one might seek diversions that take one even further from the family - maybe innocuous things like hobbies, or harmful things like alcohol. The situation can create persistent conflicts - where you want to keep the job for the money, but not keep the job because of the stress - and failing to resolve the conflict creates a vicious cycle - for example, I want security for my family, so I do whatever I can to keep the job, which makes me feel trapped, which increases stress, which increases the need to feel secure, which starts the cycle again. All of this *threatens* the larger goal. We do crazy things like that when we feel trapped in these conflicts.
With the clarity of the hierarchical relationship of the goals, it's easier to identify the conflict and find a way out. It's easier to understand precisely WHY you have the job in the first place -- what need does it serve. And maybe there are other ways to meet that need.
Sometimes just having that clarity is alone enough to find a solution. But sometimes the Evaporating Cloud technique can help (as described at http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2739668 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporating_Cloud ):
A = support the family
B = provide financially for the family
D = keep the stressful job
C = be present and engaged for the family
D' = don't keep the stressful job
A requires both B and C.
B requires D.
C requires D'.
D and D' are mutually exclusive.
Also, D threatens C.
And D' threatens B.
Written out verbally:
In order to support the family, I need to provide financially for the family. (B -> A)
To provide financially, I need to keep the stressful job. (D -> B)
In order to support the family, I need to be present and engaged for the family. (C -> A)
To be present and engaged, I need to not keep the stressful job. (D' -> C)
I cannot both keep the job and not keep the job at the same time. (D <-> D')
To break the conflict, we need to surface the assumptions behind the logical connections. It helps to express it in absolute language - this makes the assumptions more obvious.
For example, write D->B like this: "The only way I can possibly provide for my family is to keep my stressful job." This seems like it's easy to challenge. There are lots of ways that people make money other than having a bad job. Maybe I can get a good job. Maybe I can generate alternative income streams so I have less dependence on a job. Maybe I can even involve my family in that. Maybe I have resisted all those ideas in the past, because I have a lot invested in my current job; maybe there are things I like about it. But having the larger goal of supporting the family helps clarify WHY I maintain the job, and puts these other aspects of the problem into proper perspective.
Or write D'->C like this: "The only possible way I can avoid stress and be present for my family is to quit my job". Writing it like this makes it easy to challenge. Maybe I can have a discussion with my manager about whatever is creating the stress. Maybe I can adjust my work hours or the tasks associated with my role, or whatever.
So then I can come up with one or more solutions. Perhaps "Keep the job for now, but (step 1) have a talk with the manager about how to reduce the stress, (step 2) consider looking for a new job, (step 3) consider alternate sources of income that have the potential of becoming a family business, (step 4) do steps 1-3 then let it percolate for a while and see where it goes."
This solution meets both requirements B and C and thus meets the overall goal and eliminates the conflict. Or should at least give me more clarity. Perhaps I discover I have other important goals that I had never clearly identified or verbalized before. Perhaps there are other, deeper conflicts, and this job conflict is really only a symptom. I can bring all these things into consideration and find a larger, better solution.
<< Looking at things as a hierarchy (job supports family) is useful, but you have to be careful. If your job pays well, etc, but you hate it, is it really the best thing for your family? >>
The point of realizing there is a hierarchical relationship is to bring clarity to the situation, not mindless submission to the larger goal. If you realize there is a hierarchy here, then it actually makes it clearer that the job is not fulfilling its purpose of supporting the family. Just having this clarity -- that the job actually has a specific purpose -- is often enough to find the direction to a solution, to find a way out of the problem.
Without this clarity, it's easy to fall into many conflicts and traps. The misery at work can create stress, etc., which harms the family (and you). It also threatens the job itself - it can cause poor job performance and thus threaten the financial value of the job. To relieve the misery, one might seek diversions that take one even further from the family - maybe innocuous things like hobbies, or harmful things like alcohol. The situation can create persistent conflicts - where you want to keep the job for the money, but not keep the job because of the stress - and failing to resolve the conflict creates a vicious cycle - for example, I want security for my family, so I do whatever I can to keep the job, which makes me feel trapped, which increases stress, which increases the need to feel secure, which starts the cycle again. All of this *threatens* the larger goal. We do crazy things like that when we feel trapped in these conflicts.
With the clarity of the hierarchical relationship of the goals, it's easier to identify the conflict and find a way out. It's easier to understand precisely WHY you have the job in the first place -- what need does it serve. And maybe there are other ways to meet that need.
Sometimes just having that clarity is alone enough to find a solution. But sometimes the Evaporating Cloud technique can help (as described at http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2739668 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporating_Cloud ):
A = support the family
B = provide financially for the family
D = keep the stressful job
C = be present and engaged for the family
D' = don't keep the stressful job
A requires both B and C.
B requires D.
C requires D'.
D and D' are mutually exclusive.
Also, D threatens C.
And D' threatens B.
Written out verbally:
In order to support the family, I need to provide financially for the family. (B -> A)
To provide financially, I need to keep the stressful job. (D -> B)
In order to support the family, I need to be present and engaged for the family. (C -> A)
To be present and engaged, I need to not keep the stressful job. (D' -> C)
I cannot both keep the job and not keep the job at the same time. (D <-> D')
To break the conflict, we need to surface the assumptions behind the logical connections. It helps to express it in absolute language - this makes the assumptions more obvious.
For example, write D->B like this: "The only way I can possibly provide for my family is to keep my stressful job." This seems like it's easy to challenge. There are lots of ways that people make money other than having a bad job. Maybe I can get a good job. Maybe I can generate alternative income streams so I have less dependence on a job. Maybe I can even involve my family in that. Maybe I have resisted all those ideas in the past, because I have a lot invested in my current job; maybe there are things I like about it. But having the larger goal of supporting the family helps clarify WHY I maintain the job, and puts these other aspects of the problem into proper perspective.
Or write D'->C like this: "The only possible way I can avoid stress and be present for my family is to quit my job". Writing it like this makes it easy to challenge. Maybe I can have a discussion with my manager about whatever is creating the stress. Maybe I can adjust my work hours or the tasks associated with my role, or whatever.
So then I can come up with one or more solutions. Perhaps "Keep the job for now, but (step 1) have a talk with the manager about how to reduce the stress, (step 2) consider looking for a new job, (step 3) consider alternate sources of income that have the potential of becoming a family business, (step 4) do steps 1-3 then let it percolate for a while and see where it goes."
This solution meets both requirements B and C and thus meets the overall goal and eliminates the conflict. Or should at least give me more clarity. Perhaps I discover I have other important goals that I had never clearly identified or verbalized before. Perhaps there are other, deeper conflicts, and this job conflict is really only a symptom. I can bring all these things into consideration and find a larger, better solution.
May 8, 2019 at 6:59 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
A nice summary of The Goal appeared in Forbes a few days ago.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewfilev/2019/05/07/after-35-years-the-goal-is-still-an-essential-read-for-entrepreneurs-and-executives/#41c645826227
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewfilev/2019/05/07/after-35-years-the-goal-is-still-an-essential-read-for-entrepreneurs-and-executives/#41c645826227
May 13, 2019 at 5:55 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
I didn't take detailed notes, and put off typing up my comments, but this is what I remember:
It begins by extolling the virtues of the Socratic Method of teaching and that anyone can do science. Praising both at the same time is warning flag for me. Too many people, especially today, think that if they can logically go from A to B, they don't need to test it. I think the Socratic method is an effective way to teach, but it needs to be heavily balanced by actual testing of the results. Too many people skip the testing step.
(I was also caught on a few exams, when the teacher made each step in deriving an equation seem a logical continuation of the previous step. It's not so logical when faced with a blank page.)
It presents his theories as part of a story. Plant in danger of closing. Alex, the manager, contacts his old friend, who gives advice, often in the form of question that Alex has to answer. Advice works until it doesn't, then Alex (or his team, or his old friend) explain the next bit of the theory. Add problems at home and a boss who doesn't think Alex can save the plant.
I scanned a lot of it pretty quickly.
If a plant needs expediters, the plant is in trouble, especially if they have the power to reschedule things without discussing it with the rest of the scheduling team. If the VP of the parent company is allowed to browbeat the people on the floor, the entire company is in trouble.
The hike was a different way of looking at a process. Neat! Normally we think of items physically moving from one booth to the next, with a few bolts added at each booth. He transposed it so the product was miles covered by each Scout.
Most of the insights were predictable. That might just be me. My grandfather and father are both engineers who spent a lot of time on the plant floor. I was an engineer and QA Manager at a small foundry for 4 years. Dad and GPa had plenty of things (good and bad) to say about narrow-sighted efficiency calculations and the importance of listening to the people on the floor.
I liked some of the ways he phrased the insights. Short and also complete.
Good list of ways to open the bottleneck. I hadn't realized smaller batch sizes for non-bottleneck process was more efficient. It probably depends on other factors, but it's worth looking into, especially keeping in mind that extra set-up time on a non-bottleneck machine might be worth it, if it keeps the bottleneck running.
Ahhhh!!! I worked in AQ in a foundry. Heat treating some, but not all, of one batch and some, but not all, of another, is a QC and traceability nightmare, and your customers won't be happy. It really complicates recalls. Was the problem with the metal or the heat treat process?
He says there are a few more principles. I wish he'd included them. I also wish he'd included a summary in an appendix.
I recommend it to junior engineers, accountants and managers. It's a quick read overall, with maybe a dozen concepts they might need to think about to get their head around (especially if their other mentors don't believe them).