It's Not Luck, It's Thinking Processes
When not reading Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere books, I enjoy reading business fiction ( doesn’t everyone?) I just finished It’s Not Luck, Goldratt’s follow-up to The Goal, and I have some thoughts.
It’s Not Luck was written to motivate readers to use a structured thinking process to overcome obstacles and conflicts. This process, called Thinking Processes in Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, includes heavy use of diagramming with “If then” logic to visualize assumptions so that they can be challenged and broken.
In some ways, It’s Not Luck almost feels like a prequel to The Goal. Though it takes place about 10 years later, the Thinking Processes are the backstory to how all of the factory improvements were invented 10 years before.
While The Goal was aimed squarely at manufacturing, It’s Not Luck shows how the Thinking Processes are more universal. They are applied to marketing, sales, and even conflicts around buying a boat or making friends in high school.
Yes, sometimes it feels a bit artificial to apply logic-based conflict resolution diagramming to teenage drama, but sometimes, what works best is to remove emotion from a conflict and look at it clearly as a third party would.
I enjoyed this book and am motivated to learn and practice the Thinking Processes and try to use them. Only time will tell if they stick, but I think there are real benefits to structuring problem-solving and communicating clearly the assumptions that we make to avoid miscommunication and unlock potential breakthroughs.
I have started reading Goldratt's next book, Critical Chain, which is about manufacturing modems in the ’90s (just as exciting as re-forming the Knights Radiant on Roshar, right?)
Explanation of The Evaporating Cloud for conflict resolution: