aa – Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints (T.O.C.)

 Well-Being for All (wb4all) “Meta-Church”

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The Theory of Constraints (T.O.C.) the T.O.C. thinking processes were developed by my mentor and friend, Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, the brilliant Israeli physicist and management educator and consultant.

Along with the Jewish Talmud thinking process, the Theory of Constraints (T.O.C.) thinking processes are the heart of the third main principle or pillar of the meta-church God asked me, Tom McMullen, on April 3, 2013, to form in the world.

The three main principles are (1) God is calling for a return to a state where many people, ideally all people, are in direct 2-way communication with him like all the people in Adam and Eve’s time (Paradise) were, (2) God’s will is that the goal for every individual, organization, nation, ethnic group, race, and the world be well-being for all (wb4all) and not just for some particular group, and (3) God wants people  to use high-quality thinking to adapt reported past and current reported direct communications to current circumstances (vs, get stuck in and fight over fixed interpretations of fixed past reports of direct communications from God).

Incidentally, by articulating those three principles that any and all churches should implement in their own cultural way, and by making them public here and elsewhere, my work in “forming” the meta-church is essentially done.

One example of the output from use of the T.O.C. logic tree thinking processes is the transition tree below showing the transition of humanity from the original condition (vs. place) of Paradise where Adam and Eve and everyone were in direct communication with the supreme being of the universe, back to that state again.  Here’s the logic tree diagram:

Click image for larger image.
This is a Theory of Constraints (T.O.C.) Transition Logic Tree for the transition of Humanity FROM the original condition of Paradise, THROUGH the losing of direct contact with God due to Satan’s actions, TO “Paradise Regained” at some time in the future. With Step 4 being a very important transition phase.

The transition logic tree above was made quickly using Microsoft Paint primarily to show the “from Paradise to Paradise” perspective and to highlight that an important step (4) for humanity will be when most people believe that a living God controls afterlives.  In other words, it doesn’t show all the aspects of formal technically-correct T.O.C. transition trees in this version.  The loss and restoral of direct communication with God is really causal one flow while the force of (correct) afterlife belief to get tangible stuck things unstuck (like food and other resource distribution, military and diplomatic and political effects, etc) is another causal flow.  I’ve mixed the two in this version.

Next is an example of a T.O.C. Future Reality Logic Tree on the subject of God’s will of a goal of  It shows conditions being injected into reality that lead, via cause-and-effect, to that individual, institutional, and overall goal:

Theory of Constraints (T.O.C,) future reality logic tree diagram for God’s will coming into existence due to Satan’s defeat beginning Dec 29, 2012. Click on image for larger image.

This future reality logic tree above was also made quickly using Microsoft Paint to highlight and show the relationships among several important points made in various points on this site.  It was motivated primarily by the purpose of establishing the perception that the causal flow from 5 to 6 to 7 to 8&9 is possible assuming Satan’s blocking effects have been and continue to be weakened and assuming the three meta-church principles become well-known in the world.  Entity (or statement) 4 on the diagram is meta-church principle 1 (direct communications by many or all with God).  Entity 9 on the diagram is meta-church principle 2, goal and God’s will of well-being for all.  Entity 2 on the diagram is church principle 3, high-quality thinking to adapt past and current revelation to current circumstances (vs, get stuck in and fight over fixed interpretations of fixed past reports of direct communications from God).  It needs a little adjustment to have the causality right.  For instance, statement 4 also is cause for statement 5 since more direct communication with God will create greater force that good things will be done in the practical physical world.  However, the current version shows a lot of key relationships and was available quickly.

Good books on T.O.C.

The link below is to a very good book (written by me) about T.O.C., the Theory of Constraints, an expression of the science and physics thinking process for use in everyday life by everyday people on everyday simple and complex situations both inside and outside the usual “hard sciences” areas.

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Constraints-Management-System/dp/1574440667

Introduction to the Theory of Constraints Management System (1998).  by Thomas B. McMullen, Jr. (me, the webwriter for this wb4all site).  There are lots of other good books about T.O.C. on amazon.com too.  Mine’s a good place to start and contains references to many others.  You can “look inside” and read a lot of it for free at the above address.  It has a kindle edition.  Used copies are really inexpensive.  Enjoy.  The quotes are great at the beginning of each chapter.  The bookstore tour, Mission Impossible T.O.C. demo, Detective Columbo skit, and lots of other things make it worth the trouble and resource to get it.  Thus spake McMullen.

Bill Dettmer’s and Lisa Scheinkopf’s books on the thinking process portions of T.O.C. are especially good too.  Lots of T.O.C. books are good with various kinds of focus, but, for this purpose, applying the supreme being’s past-expressed and currently-expressed will to current circumstances, Bill’s and Lisa’s thinking process books are really good.  They discuss the thinking process, not the application to God’s will.  Not in the current editions.  Maybe in later editions.  I’m out ahead on a few thing again.  😉  That’s an understatement if I ever saw or wrote one.

On the old pre-church portion of this site, there’s a page called Thinking About Thinking that gets into my view that the T.O.C. thinking processes produced in a young or old person much of the thinking acuity and cognitive sets that years of bar and bat mitzvah and other Talmud study produce.  In other words, those who study the high-quality thinking in the Talmud inductively get untrimmed future trees, negative branch reservations, negative branch trimming with injections new, evaporating cloud like implicit and explicit assumption surfacing and new injections, just not by those names and not by any names.  Goldratt’s genius was to allow direct teaching of the high-quality thinking elements one gets inductively from years of Talmud study or being around Talmud-level thinkers that got the thinking habits from culture vs. study.

I learned my T.O.C. mostly from my friend and mentor, Eli Goldratt.  I learned my first insights and got interested in the Talmud process during a discussion with him over dinner in Denver in I think 1997 while others around the large table were talking about other things.  My conclusions that T.O.C. gives directly and explicitly and at a meta level the thinking skills Talmud students gets indirectly and inductively and that T.O.C. and Talmud study together should be the heart and core of the wb4all church’s third pillar (high quality thinking process to adapt past and current communications of God’s will to current circumstances), are my own and are from more recent years.  The idea of the church and it’s three pillars are “my own” in the sense of “ideas coming to me,” but also “God’s will” in that he says that’s what he wants and that’s why he caused me to have “my” ideas.  Every wonder about “your” ideas and where they come from?  The answer is it can be from a variety of sources, but one of them, one of the sources of what we call, “intuition,” is God.

There’s also a page on the old pre-church portion of this site called, Thinking About Concept Systems, that gets into criteria and processes for choosing among alternative concept systems or solutions … copernicus … simplicity … descriptive power, explanatory power, predictive power, normative power … Also see page on this site, Copernican Shift: Spiritual World 101: alternative ways to view page …

The link below has photos of people coached by thinking process expert, Bill Dettmer, using T.O.C. thinking processes:

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I often like to use Microsoft Paint and the laptop mouse to make simple T.O.C. logic tree thinking diagrams.  On the one below, I simulate Bill’s students’ yellow stickies 🙂

Starting out a T.O.C. future reality logic tree with one yellow sticky for the goal, well-being for all (wb4all) Click on image to make image larger.

Next, so you can see another example of what a logic tree can look like, here’s one from my 1998 book (figure 1-1) that organizes the elements of the Theory of Constraints (T.O.C.) into a management system with the individual elements connected on a cause-and-effect.  At the time of publishing, there wasn’t a logic tree around that did that.  The image needs a little work on the left side, bottom, and is a little fuzzy, so I’ll replace it sometime.  But, for now, it gives an idea that T.O.C. verbalizing intuition-based and clarity-based and cause-and-effect based thinking processes can be used to improve results in any area of life.  This includes, in my view, being, with the Jewish Talmud thinking and study process, the right heart and core of the well-being for all church’s third pillar — namely, a high quality thinking process to apply past and current inputs from people about God’s will and apply them to current circumstances in torah-to-mishnah fashion as discussed in detail on the Talmud Thinking Process page on this site.  God says, as he has many times before, he agrees.

Pretty Good Management System. Click on image for bigger image size.