Anthony Stafford Beer Quotes (23 quotes)

Anthony Stafford Beer: 23 quotes4 likes

Famous Anthony Stafford Beer Quotes

“Clearly, if it is possible to have a self-regulating system that implicitly arranges its own stability, then this is of the keenest management interest.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 6, The Viable Governor, p. 154.

“We have, over the centuries, devised a management structure for running things, whether firms or whole countries. This structure depends absolutely on the limitations of the human hand, eye, and brain. The discoveries of management cybernetics, coupled with the techniques of operational research and with the new technology of automation, make possible a new way of running things which is not so limited. Yet we insist on retaining the original structures and automating them. In so doing, we enshrine in steel, glass, and semiconductors those very limitations of hand, eye, and brain that the computer was invented precisely to transcend.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 7, Automation and Such, p. 177.

“It is terribly important to appreciate that some things remain obscure to the bitter end.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 4, An Alphabet of Models, p. 115.

“If cybernetics is the science of control, management is the profession of control”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Decision and control: the meaning of operational research and management cybernetics, 1966, p. 239 cited in: A. Ghosal (1978) Applied cybernetics: its relevance in operations research. p. 2 and many other sources.

“It is the concept of likelihood that a real understanding of probability resides, and we must learn how to measure it.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 2, Chance, Risk and Malice, p. 41.

“The development of the Watt governor for steam engines, which adapted the power output of the engine automatically to the load by means of feedback, consolidated the first Industrial Revolution.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 6, The Viable Governor, p. 142.

Anthony Stafford Beer Quotes

“Management problems are not respecters of the company organization, nor of the talents of the people appointed to solve them.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 5, It Works, p. 117.

“According to the science of cybernetics, which deals with the topic of control in every kind of system (mechanical, electronic, biological, human, economic, and so on), there is a natural law that governs the capacity of a control system to work. It says that the control must be capable of generating as much "variety" as the situation to be controlled.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 2, Chance, Risk and Malice, p. 37.

“. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Stafford Beer (1985) Diagnosing the system for organizations Wiley, p. 99.

“A stochastic process is about the results of convolving probabilities-which is just what management is about, as well.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 2, Chance, Risk and Malice, p. 58

“An internal combustion engine is 'clearly' a system; we subscribe to this opinion because we know that the engine was designed precisely to be a system. It is, however, possible to envisage that someone (a Martian perhaps) totally devoid of engineering knowledge might at first regard the engine as a random collection of objects. If this someone is to draw the conclusion that the collection is coherent, forming a system, it will be necessary to begin by inspecting the relationships of the entities comprising the collection to each other. In declaring that a collection ought to be called a system, that is to say, we acknowledge relatedness. But everything is related to everything else. The philosopher Hegel enunciated a proposition called the Axiom of Internal Relations. This states that the relations by which terms are related are an integral part of the terms they relate. So the notion we have of any thing is enriched by the general connotation of the term which names it; and this connotation describes the relationship of the thing to other things… [There are three stages in the recognition of a system]… we acknowledge particular relationships which are obtrusive: this turns a mere collection into something that may be called an assemblage. Secondly, we detect a pattern in the set of relationships concerned: this turns an assemblage into a systematically arranged assemblage. Thirdly, we perceive a purpose served by this arrangement: and there is a system.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Decision and control: the meaning of operational research and management cybernetics, 1966, p. 242.

“Hence we may recognize the subject of management cybernetics — which is seen as a rich provider of models for doing OR.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Decision and control: the meaning of operational research and management cybernetics, 1966, p. 239.

“A slowly moving queue does not move uniformly. Rather, waves of motion pass down the queue. The frequency and amplitude of these waves is inversely related to the speed at which the queue is served.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 4, An Alphabet of Models, p. 108.

“General Systems Theory, as originally intended by Von Bertalanffy, is an ideal framework for the modeling of a business enterprise. Work, in its most civilized form should enrich, empower and emancipate. Thus we must continue to find ways to support work as a humanistic, not mechanistic endeavor. We must continue to seek out new models of business that support and enhance the individual as well as the collective whole. Given all this new technology, we need new institutions for handling it.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Beer (1974) Designing Freedom. House Of Anansi Press, Toronto cited in: B. Dawson (2007) "Bertalanffy Revisited: Operationalizing A General Systems Theory Based Business Model Through General Systems Thinking, Modeling, And Practice", In: Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the ISSS, 2007.

“The system of transportation is not coherent; it is not treated as integral. Roads compete with with railroads and airlines in chaotic fashion, and at immense cost to the nation.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 7, Automation and Such, p. 186.

“The whole picture is complicated by the stockists and merchants who will try to exploit any shortages that may appear.
The result is this. The feedback information from the industry's environment consists, first and foremost, of a forward order load. Much of this "demand for steel" will be bogus.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 4, An Alphabet of Models, p. 96.

“The problem with managing either a business or a prison by periodic rather than continuous inspection is that the "variables" are likely to be seriously out of control before the discrepancy is noted.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 6, The Viable Governor, p. 146.

“Policy-making, decision-taking, and control: These are the three functions of management that have intellectual content.”

Anthony Stafford Beer

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 1, Processes and Policies, p. 10.