The novel The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, is undoubtedly one of the most unusual business books of recent years. The intention of co-author Goldratt in conceiving the book is to introduce and develop a theory of production management based on the principles of physics. The authors, however, chose to develop this view by presenting what amounts to a hypothetical case study. To that point, the exercise is not uncommon in the literature of business.
However, in developing a hypothetical case study in the length and detail required for the argument presented--the book runs to 337 pages--the authors chose to present their work in the form of a novel. The book centers on Alex Rogo, the plant manager of the Bearington manufacturing plant of UniCo; town and corporation are both fictitious, as are the machines in the plant and the (never specified) lines of products the plant turns out. At the beginning of the novel, Rogo hears grim news from his division manager, Bill Peach: The Bearington plant is losing money, and if Rogo does not turn it around in three months, the plant will be shut down. Rogo, and nearly all the plant's employees, stand to lose their jobs.
The Goal is unlikely to win any literary awards. None the less, it is surprisingly successful as a novel as well as as a business book; in the expression of the popular-book trade, it is a page-turner. And, as a consequence of the novel format (in two senses of the word), the book touches on issues that go well beyond the specifics of production management.
One of these is communication. Had the authors chosen to write a simple expository book, the communication issue would not directly arise, save in the sense of whether or not the authors succeeded in communicating their argument to the reader. In casting the book as a novel, however, the authors have moved the problems of communication in business into the book. It is not enough for Alex Ro...