By reading The Goal (Goldratt's most famous book), a number of years back, at the insistance of a very wise owl, and with reluctance, since I tend to despise typical MBA's readings, I was able to increase productivity by over 20% without investing a dime and turn one of my companies around in less than a week. So I was eager and excited to read Goldratt's The Choice. Though less earth-shattering (and less counter-intuitive) than The Goal, it is none-the-less a very interesting, meaningful and relevant book about not only how to solve business problems, but also how to think clearly and improve any area of life.
The style of the book is rather self-conscious and at times unnervingly patronizing. The main deffect of The Goal (the friction generated by the style, at the same time childish and patronizing) is exacerbated in this book, told in the voice of Goldratt's daughter. It is unnerving, because the energy spent trying to make the narrative believable, takes away from the smooth flow of the important ideas. It is also strange to have the narrator (the daughter) tell us in syrupy ways what a genius her father is, when we know the author is the father! (an excessively contrived, yet inneffective device). I also found fault with the chapter on tautologies and circular logic. Tautologies are not what Goldratt thinks they are, strictly speaking. And, hoping not to sound too petty, the use of "then" instead of "than" (more then -err, than- once) was my minor editorial pet peeve.
The truly enjoyable parts of the book are "the reports" that the father sends the daughter. Even if they are just stylizations of real-life situations, they are very illustrative of what is possible with a little clear thinking. After reading the book, I am eager to generate "quantum change", and take my companies to net profits equal to my current revenues.
It must be said that despite being a self proclaimed "true scientist", Goldratt's approach is "integral" (or "holistic" -at the risk of scaring you with New-Agy terminology-) in the sense that it is not a valueless, flat, reductionist approach to life, but quite the contrary, an embrace of the interrelation of Emotions, Intuition and Logic, and how it relates to "living a full life". It spouses a synergistic (again, apologies for the term) approach to conflict and contradictions and an integral notion of knowledge and knowing.
5 stars for content, 2 stars for style, equals 4 stars total (since I give more weight to the first).