A unique primary source in the TOC literature — a lightly-edited transcript of a sixty-minute conversation between Ching and eliyahu-goldratt, recorded in November 2009. The interview focused on Goldratt's novel "Isn't It Obvious?" and the six lessons Goldratt said were hidden within it.
Published as an ebook in 2017 (listed as "Advanced Theory of Constraints Book 1"), the original audio and transcript remain freely available at clarkeching.com. This open availability reflects Ching's consistent practice of distributing foundational content free while charging for the fuller treatments.
The interview represents the goldratt-masterclass-interview event — Ching's most direct encounter with his intellectual mentor. Goldratt died in 2011, making this recording an important document of his thinking in the last years of his life. The six lessons Goldratt articulates are distillations of bottleneck-thinking applied to retail and supply chain contexts, drawn out through Socratic dialogue rather than lecture.
For understanding Ching's intellectual formation, this work is essential. It reveals the transmission mechanism — how Ching absorbed not just Goldratt's ideas but his pedagogical method, particularly the use of story to reveal principles gradually. The business novel format Ching employs in rolling-rocks-downhill and the-bottleneck-detective traces directly to Goldratt's example as explained in this conversation.
The "Advanced Theory of Constraints" series label positions the work as a complement to the more introductory the-bottleneck-rules, aimed at readers who want to go deeper into Goldratt's own thinking rather than Ching's synthesis. The freely available audio also connects to the agile-uprising-toc-aissance-interview and other sources where Ching discusses his relationship with Goldratt's legacy.