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Russell L. Ackoff Quotes
1919–2009 United States
Russell L. Ackoff (12 February 1919 – 29 October 2009) was an American organizational theorist, professor and pioneer in the field of operations research, systems thinking and management science.
United States Academics Business theorists Also known as: Ackoff, Russell L., Russell Ackoff
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37 quotes
A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say “no” but none to say “yes”. Bureaucrats can find an infinite number of reasons for rejecting any proposed change, but can find none for accepting it.
Ackoff (2006)
Because we cannot yet (1) characterize all the possible experimental designs along quantitative scales and (2) generate cost-of-error functions, comparisons must be made in specific contexts rather than by use of analytic optimizing.
Because the Systems Age is teleologically oriented, it is preoccupied with systems that are goal-seeking or purposeful, that is, systems that can display choice of either means or ends, or both. It is interested in purely mechanical systems only.
The less sure managers are of their opinions, the more vigorously they defend them. Managers do not waste their time defending beliefs they hold strongly – they just assert them. Nor do they bother to refute what they strongly believe is false.
Managers who don't know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure. For example, those who want a high quality of work life but don't know how to measure it, often settle for wanting a high standard of living because they can measure it.
A system is more than the sum of its parts; it is an indivisible whole. It loses its essential properties when it is taken apart. The elements of a system may themselves be systems, and every system may be part of a larger system.
Ackoff (1973)
The synthetic mode of thought, when applied to systems problems, is called the systems approach. In this approach a problem is not solved by taking it apart but by viewing it as a part of a larger problem.
In the Systems Age we tend to look at things as part of larger wholes rather than as wholes to be taken apart. This is the doctrine of expansionism. Expansionism brings with it the synthetic mode of thought much as reductionism brought with it.
"English does not contain a suitable word for 'system of problems.' Therefore, I have had to coin one. I choose to call such a system a mess"
The less important an issue is, the more time managers spend discussing it. More time is spent on small talk than is spent on large talk. Most talk is about what matters least. What matters least is what most of us know most about.
I do not deny that most managers lack a good deal of information that they should have, but I do deny that this is the most important informational deficiency from which they suffer. It seems to me that they suffer more from an overabundance of irrelevant information.
The development (rather than the history) of operations research as a science consists of the development of its methods, concepts, and techniques. Operations research is neither a method nor a technique; it is or is becoming a science and as such is defined by a combination of the phenomena it studies.
Planning is the design of a desired future and of effective ways of bringing it about. It is an instrument that is used by the wise, but not by the wise alone. When conducted by lesser men it often becomes an irrelevant ritual that produces short-run peace of mind, but not the future that is longed for.
p. 1 as cited in: George David Hughes (1997)
In reactive problem solving we walk into the future facing the past — we move away from, rather than toward, something. This often results in unforseen consequences that are more distasteful than the deficiencies removed.
When a mess, which is a system of problems, is taken apart, it loses its essential properties and so does each of its parts. The behavior of a mess depends more on how the treatment of its parts interact than how they act independently of each other. A partial solution to a whole system of problems is better than whole solutions of each of its parts taken separately.
The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
Ackoff (2007)
A good deal of the corporate planning I have observed is like a ritual rain dance; it has no effect on the weather that follows, but those who engage in it think it does. Moreover, it seems to me that much of the advice and instruction related to corporate planning is directed at improving the dancing, not the weather.
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