The Goal

The Goal is set in the small town of Bearington, in an unnamed state in the U.S.A. Alex, a native of Bearington, has recently returned to his hometown to run a UniCo plant. Alex frequently muses on his childhood and adolescence in Bearington, the present state of the town, and the consequences for the town should the plant close down. In this way, Bearington stands in for Alex himself—it encompasses his past, present, and his—potentially grim—future.

Alex speaks fondly of Bearington, particularly his childhood there. He feels a sense of pride and connection to the place he grew up in, boasting that he knows “the best places to go to buy things, the good bars and the places you stay out of” (12). Though he claims that he “can’t see much difference here from any of the other suburbs where we’ve lived” (12), he admits that he feels “ownership” (12) of and “more affection” (12) for Bearington.

Because Bearington is a symbol for Alex’s life journey, he views it through rose-colored glasses. Almost off-hand, he notes the “sooty, crumbling” (12) buildings, the store fronts “vacant or covered with plywood” (12). Bearington has lost its sheen, just as Alex’s failure at the plant has destroyed his status as the local kid who “made it big” (13), a “high school fantasy come true” (13). Julie hates Bearington, a feeling that mirrors her growing frustration with Alex and his emotional neglect. When told that the plant may close, Alex sees Julie’s face “brighten” (11) and he accuses her of wanting to abandon Bearington as fast as possible, just as Julie will eventually abandon Alex.

Alex fears for Bearington’s future in the same way he fears for his own—the two are inextricably connected. After the closing of a local office tower, once a “symbol of Bearington’s vitality, a sign of re-birth” (12), the town has suffered. The population has dwindled and the economy declined. Alex fears that it may be his plant’s “turn” (13) to close down, further diminishing the town’s economic well-being. Alex also fears for his own future if the plant closes—who will want to take a plant manager who ran a plant into the ground? Alex, who is “starting to feel like a traitor” (14), worries that he, like Bearington, will fail and crumble. 

In Chapters 13-15, Alex goes with his son, Davey, and Davey’s scout troop on an overnight hike. Alex is put in charge on accompanying the scouts to their campsite and leading them safely out of the woods the next morning. Alex initially struggles to keep the troop together and on schedule, and his difficulties on the hike and his eventual success are used as an extended metaphor for various aspects of management. “But then the idea of having to supervise a bunch of kids doesn’t daunt me—after all, I do that every day at the plant” (94). Alex quickly discovers that every mistake he makes with the scouts translates to a mistake he is making at the plant. First, he sets the fastest kid as the group leader, but this causes the line of boys to be “stretched out much farther” (95) than they should be. Alex himself, bringing up the back of the line, can only move as fast as the slowest boy, a chubby kid with a heavy backpack named Herbie. Alex sees that the stretched-out line of boys is analogous to the different machines in his plant. Just as anyone behind Herbie can move no faster than Herbie himself, so the production line can move no faster than the slowest machine. Herbie is a “bottleneck” and when referring to bottlenecks at the plant, Alex and his team will frequently call slow or stalled machines a “Herbie.”

Alex first tries to fix the problem by putting Herbie at the front of the line. That way, the gap does not become larger. At first, this appears to work. All the boys move at the same pace and no one is left behind. Alex puts this in business terms, saying that “Inventory is going up. Throughput is going down. And operational expense in probably increasing” (102). By putting Herbie at the front of the line Alex foreshadows his eventual decision to put the NC-10X at the front of the assembly line.

When it becomes clear that the troop will not reach the campsite by nightfall, Alex tries a new tactic. Seeing that Herbie’s backpack is filled with food and camping supplies, Alex divvies up the supplies between all the boys. His burden lightened, Herbie walks much faster, and so the whole troop is able to move more efficiently and reach the campsite on time. This foreshadows the way in which Alex will “lighten the load” of his plant’s bottlenecks by reviving old, unused machines and creating a system to expedite orders. Early on in the hike, Alex struggles to effectively manage the troop, just as he initially struggles to manage his plant. Using similar techniques, he saves both the hike and plant, leading the troop to their beautiful, shaded campsite and the plant to financial success.