37 quotes
When a business is bought, it is bought for its potential—for its future, not its past.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)
A mission statement should define the business that the organization wants to be in, not necessarily what it is in.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)
Over time, every way of thinking generates important problems that it cannot solve.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)
The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds.
Ackoff (2007)
The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things. The higher the rank of managers, the less they know about many things.
p. 2 cited in: Gregory H. Watson (2010)
The basic managerial idea introduced by systems thinking, is that to manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.
Russell L. Ackoff and Fred Emery (1972)
Problem solving has traditionally been taken to be an essential function of management. Through systems thinking, however, we have come to doubt the existence of problems and solutions to them.
Another common deficiency is the failure of some panaceas to take into account a social system's developmental responsibilities to its stakeholders.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)
Most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload.
The higher standard of living, the more consideration we give to the fun we derive from what we do and its meaningfulness.
Out of this basic language, we build up the other languages of the sciences, beginning with the language of physics, and proceeding to biology, psychology, and the social sciences.
A corporation that fails to see itself as an instrument of all its stakeholders will probably fail to use them, and be used by them, effectively enough to survive in the emerging environment.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)
Every culture has a shared pattern of thinking. It is the cement that holds a culture together, gives it unity. A culture's characteristic way of thinking is imbedded in its concept of the nature of reality, its world view.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)
A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.
Managers cannot learn from doing things right, only from doing them wrong
p. 37 cited in: Andrew Carey (2008)
A subject may be said to be in such a state if he (it) wants something and has unequally efficient alternative ways of trying to get it.
Unless the information overload to which managers are subjected is reduced, any additional information made available by an MIS cannot be expected to be used effectively.
The effort to get rid of what we do not want is reactive, retrospectively oriented problem solving. The effort to obtain what we want is proactive, prospectively oriented problem solving.
Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.
A change of world view not only brings about profound cultural changes, but also is responsible for what historians call a "change of age." An age is a period of time in which the prevailing world view has remained relatively unchanged.
Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)