Jimmy Watson gave me a reading assignment I didn't know I needed.
In our pre-call, he mentioned that Clavis has new hires read one book before they start: The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. I read it right after, loved it, and then completely forgot to bring it up during the actual episode. So I'm plugging it here instead.
It's a business fable, not a textbook. Alex Rogo, a plant manager, has 90 days to save a bleeding manufacturing company from liquidation. He doesn't get there through cost accounting. He gets there through the theory of constraints: the idea that optimizing every machine on the line is a trap, because only one machine is actually choking your output.
Find that bottleneck. Push every resource toward it. Everything downstream follows.
Rogo does exactly that, slashes inventory, frees up working capital, and turns a write-off into a high-margin cash machine.
For anyone in PE, this is a genuinely useful mental model for operational value creation, not just plant floors. Wherever your portfolio company's constraint is, that's where your attention belongs. Everywhere else is noise.
Check out episode 68 of the Minds Capital Podcast with Jimmy Watson on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or via our website.
