DW: So you've become a Goldratt consultant yourself?
AV: Yes. I presented the results from our hospital's outpatient clinic at one of the Goldratt symposia in the early 1990s. This was the first report of a medical implementation of the theory of constraints. Eli Goldratt was there to hear my presentation, and afterwards he in- vited me to join the Goldratt Institute as an academic associate. I was based at the university but involved in the implementations of his consulting company. I did quite a bit of work in the mining industry- nothing to do with medicine! It was pure theory of constraints, straight out of the book. It allowed me to develop my own skills.
DW: What's a doctor doing advising mining companies?
AV: It's interesting that you say that. I'm a physician, not a surgeon, In other words I'm a thinker, not a doer. I say that facetiously but as a physician, it's all about diagnosis. And the whole process of diagno- sis, whether it's a patient or an organization, is the application of the scientific method. Eli Goldratt says that his theory of constraints is simply the application of the scientific method. So it's almost natural that an advisor to a mining company-in terms of diagnosing what's wrong and what to do about it-could be a physician. In fact some of the teaching materials that the Goldratt Institute uses refer to the medical model. It asks trainee consultants, How does a doctor ap- proach the problem? It gives them a parallel for how you diagnose problems in organizations.
DW: That's interesting. Eli has said that his overriding
ambition in life is to teach the world how to think.
AV: Right. And nothing he has done in the almost 14 years that I have known him suggests to me that that is a facetious statement. The
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theory of constraints is about thinking processes, it's a subset of logic. In other words, the scientific method.
DW: Has any of this made you a better teacher of physicians?
AV: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've told you that diagnosing a patient and diagnosing a business is the same thing. But a doctor learns to diagnose by watching other doctors. It's not taught as a science. The processes of diagnosis are taught but what might be called the phi- losophy of diagnosis is not taught as it is in the theory of constraints. The traditional approach is, watch what I do. The approach that I've since followed is, let's look at how the scientific method works, then let's see if we can apply this to a patient. Most students take to this very well.
Interview with Eli Goldratt continued... DW: That will do it
EG: Please, one more. The jewel in the crown, at least in my eyes, is the usage of TOC in education. Yes, in kindergartens and elementary schools. Don't you agree that there is no need to wait until we are adults to learn how to effectively insert some common sense into our surrounding?
Interview with Kathy Suerken, CEO TOC For Education,
An international nonprofit dedicated to teaching TOC think- ing processes to schoolchildren.
DW: You're a middle school teacher, not a plant manager. How does The Goal fit with the work you do with children?
KS: Well, it all started almost 15 years ago. I was kind of a new teacher at a middle school but I had been a parent volunteer for a while. I was running a voluntary math program for kids and my husband was giving me advice on how to manage it. The program was already a success, we had 100% participation. I asked him, "Well, what do I do
now? Go to a different school?" And he said, "Kathy, you'll have to find another goal." Six months later he said, "There's a book you have to read, we're passing it around at our office and everyone's signing the back if they recommend it." That was my introduction to The Goal. Within six months, I wrote a letter to Eli Goldratt that be- gan, "Dear Dr. Goldratt, if you were to walk into the office of Frank Fuller, Ruckle Middle School's principal, on his desk you would find a copy of The Goal... and thereby hangs a tale." I went on to say how I was using the ideas and concepts to run this project.
DW: Did you hear back from Eli?
KS: Within four days, with a copy of his newly revised book. And then within about a week or so I heard from Bob Fox, who was presi- dent of the Goldratt Institute at that time, and they offered to send me to Jonah school on scholarship. So I went through the course. Later I went through a facilitator program on how to become a trainer of Jonah processes. And then I went back and taught a pilot course to kids. By the end of the year my kids were using the thinking pro- cesses, which they learned brilliantly. They were the most Socratic learners and teachers of other kids that you ever saw. It was pretty convincing evidence to me that this stuff works with kids, and it launched me into the role I have now.
DW: Was it a course about TOC or a course that used TOC methods to teach other content?
KS: It was a class on world cultures-basically a class on perspectives, which of course this is so aligned with. We used methods derived from TOC to advance the curriculum. Later I taught a critical think- ing skills course that was pure TOC. In that course I was teaching cause and effect as a skill. We used concepts like the conflict cloud to analyze conflicts in real-life situations.
DW: What evidence do you have that the kids were absorbing the concepts?
KS: Here's an example. One day I read to the students the section about the hike from The Goal, and then I gave them an evaluation sheet. I asked them, "How is this relevant to real life? What's the
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weakest link?" Stuff like that. It wasn't a test. I just wanted to know if they were getting it. That night I looked at their answers and I real- ized maybe half of them got it and half of them didn't. So I went back the next day and I asked them again, "What determines the strength of the chain?" I called on one boy-let's say his name was Mike-who I knew was struggling. He was rambling on and on. He did not get it. And I did not know what to ask Mike to get the answer out of him. So then I looked at my other students. And I knew if I called on John, for example, who did get it, he would just tell Mike the answer, and that's not what I wanted. So I said, "No one can give Mike the answer. You can ask Mike a question to help him think of the answer." And that is when one of my other students raised her hand. She said, "Remem- ber when we were doing the cloud on teach fast, teach slow? The problem of making sure everyone understands but the fast ones don't get bored?" That's when I saw what was happening. As the other students began asking Mike questions designed to draw the answer out of him, I could see that everyone was engaged. It was a wonderful example of cooperative learning. Because everyone had to think. Even if they already knew the answer, they were thinking hard about how to guide others to the answer.
DW: How do you introduce TOC to schools where it has never been taught before?
KS: We usually start with teaching TOC as a generic process, then figure out how to apply it to a specific curriculum. Initially it was easier to get it in through the counseling element of the school-the behavior application. That seemed to be the most obvious way in.