Skip to content

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.

— Russell L. Ackoff

Another quote →

More quotes by Russell L. Ackoff

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)

All Russell L. Ackoff quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Russell L. Ackoff (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.