Usually I write about photography or photoshop, but today I wanted to share some books that have changed the way I view business at the most fundamental level.

Today, I wanted to share a book called The Goal.  Written like a novel, this easy reading book is about the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and shares a powerful method for conflict resolution called the cloud diagram. This is one of the all time best business books out there (as well as one of the best selling business titles ever). It is very easy to read and will forever change the way you look a problems (business or personal).

TOC – in a  nutshell – is a method to identify areas in a system where the work backs up – “the bottleneck” – and how to alleviate the problem.  This can work for marketing, sales, production, workflow, scheduling, etc… If you can identify the problem area, this book gives you the tools to fix them.  Bonus – Understanding why most other popular business paradigms (Just in time -JIT, Total Quality Management -TQM, and six sigma, etc…)  work can be explained by TOC.