Tribute to an astounding human being - Dr Eliyahu Goldratt

June 15, 2011 - PRLog -- Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt – people often refer to him as a Genius, management guru, philosopher, Consultant, and an Iconoclast

‘Eli’ as he personally preferred to be called, late Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt (64 years) was
the inventor & author of the concepts on ‘Theory of Constraints’ (TOC). Eli hails from
Tel Aviv in Israel. Eli was a scientist & shot to fame when he released his first book
‘The Goal’ in the early 80’s which still sells like a hot cake. The Goal has been
translated into several languages across the world including many Indian languages
(Hindi, Marathi & Tamil). Eli is an internationally recognized leader in the
development of new business management philosophies and systems. Eli’s ideas &
excellent work are being carried out by consultants and educators around the world,
and utilized by many of the world’s largest corporations, including IBM, Procter &
Gamble, AT&T, NV Philips, ABB and Boeing. Unconventional, stimulating, and “a
slayer of sacred cows,” Dr. Goldratt used to exhort his audience to examine and
reassess their business practices with a fresh, new vision.

THE GOAL, his best-selling business textbook written in a novel form, illustrates
Theory of Constraints (TOC), an overall framework for helping businesses
determine: what to change —not everything is broken;, what to change to —what are
the simple, practical simple practical solutions;, and how to cause the change — overcoming the
inherent resistance to change. Eli has written numerous books on related topics,
including IT’S NOT LUCK and CRITICAL CHAIN. His latest books, THE CHOICE,
rapidly became the #1 bestseller in Japan. Eli’s writing is firmly based on logical
thinking & only after he validates his thinking with reality, does he concludes his findings
as a book. Eli, a stern believer of the Socratic way of teaching, uses the Socratic
technique to unravel his revelations for better clarity in one’s understanding of his
teachings. Eli was a frequent contributor to scientific journals, magazines and
business publications. He was the Founder and Chairman of the Goldratt Group
(Goldratt Schools, Goldratt Marketing and Goldratt Consulting), which has taken the
Theory of Constraints practices to new heights with VIABLE VISION, a platform to
improve business productivity and profitability. Viable Vision provides the strategy
and specific tactics that deliver unprecedented performance and bottom-line results
in all aspects of a company’s operation.

Eli’s approach & solution to managing businesses was unconventional & he
develops it based on ‘Cause & effect’, which is derived from the hard sciences. He
had deep conviction that human based systems are an essential part of nature &
hence all the rules that govern nature would also apply to human beings. He always
strove for & emphasized extensively the development of the ‘pocket of sanity’ in
human relationships. Over the last 4 decades he hads extensively travelled to many
countries across the world to deliver his thoughts on TOC to the benefit of business
& humanity in general. He frequently asserted rather strongly that ‘Reality is
exceedingly simple’, ‘People are good’, ‘there are no conflicts in reality’ & ‘any
situation no matter what can be substantially improved’ & made these four principles
as the foundation pillars of TOC philosophy. During the recent global slowdown in
2009, he took it as his personal mission to travel across the world (including several
Indian cities) to convince the audience with his thoughts & analysis that ‘Recession’
was a wrong understanding of reality; he stressed logically on how demand is likely
to bounce back in a short while & that there is no need for the companies to make
knee jerk reactions such as laying off their workforce etc. His prediction was so
perfect that within few months from then, that we witnessed that the demand increase was
way above normality & companies have bounced back to regular ways of working.

TOC concepts are profoundly applicable to personal life & in resolving personal
conflicts. A quick google search would reveal that so many companies cutting across
the boundaries of country, culture, language etc have enormously gained from the
application of TOC solutions to respective businesses.

Eli’s invention & contribution to the betterment of business management & humanity
in general is enormous. He has evolved detailed business solutions to manage
operations, distribution, marketing & sales, projects, finance & recently has invented
a holistic method to judiciously intertwine the various solutions to deliver exponential
bottom line results to companies. His inventions on thinking process tools (on how to
interpret & analyse reality) is astounding. Eli has left behind a huge treasure of
knowledge for the TOC community & the world to continue using the tools to the
betterment of business & human relationships. His frequent question to his
audiences – ‘Do you want easy life?’ or ‘Do you want meaningful life?’ often has left
the audience with much to think. While stressing the need of individuals to set a lofty
& worthy goal for one’s life (he refers to Nelson Mandella & Mahatma Gandhi as an
example for this), as the goal would eventually become the guiding framework that
would help the individual to lead a meaningful life, he often mentioned that his
personal goal is to enable ‘The world to think’. He succeeded hugely in his personal
mission through his books, lectures, articles & practical evidences of several
transformed minds.

Eli passed away on June 11th 2011 in Israel, when he went down fighting lung
cancer. Until his last breath, he was involved in teaching people on TOC. People
who have interacted with him & have read his books would remember him forever.
Needless to say he was an era & the knowledge he is leaving behind will remain as
the guiding lamp to the world.

Eli is survived by his wife, son, daughter, son in law, employees of Goldratt Group &
TOC community at large.