Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Importance of Goal-Setting
Working with Constraints
Ineffective vs. Effective Business Metrics
Efficiency vs. Optimization
The Cost of Corporate Success
Summary
Analysis
Alex gets home and finds dinner waiting for him in the microwave. His second-grade daughter, Sharon, appears, holding her straight-A report card that she’s been waiting all night to show him. Alex listens to Sharon tell him about her day and her good grades, and then he puts her to bed a little after midnight. Even then, Alex can’t sleep. He thinks about everything he needs to re-learn about running an organization if he’s going to keep the plant in business. However, he has very little time. He decides he’ll track down Jonah and ask him for help.
Sharon’s decision to wait up all night to show Alex her report card implies that she is proud of her hard work and wants to share that accomplishment with her father. Alex’s failure to give Sharon the attention and affirmation she needs reinforces how his corporate career negatively impacts not just himself, but his family as well.
Themes
