Anthony Stafford Beer: Control

Anthony Stafford Beer was British theorist, consultant, and professor. Explore interesting quotes on control.

Anthony Stafford Beer: 46 quotes 4 likes

“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.

Science

“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.

Law , Nature , Science

“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.

Business , Problem

“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.

Decision