Russell L. Ackoff: Trending quotes (page 2)

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Russell L. Ackoff: 140   quotes 3   likes

“Over time, every way of thinking generates important problems that it cannot solve.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 3. Opening sentence.

Way , Problem , Thinking , Time

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1960s, Management misinformation systems, 1967, p. 148.

“Data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985, From Data to Wisdom, 1989

“The measure of information to be developed here will also be related to freedom of choice; that is, it will be a function of the probabilities of choice associated with the alternative courses of action… The measure developed here is a function of m, the number of alternative potential courses of action.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, On purposeful systems., 1972, p. 145, as cited in: Galjaard (2009, p. 89): About the information-concept of Ackoff.

Freedom

“Man seeks objectives that enable him to convert the attainment of every goal into a means for the attainment of a new and more desirable goal. The ultimate objective in such a sequence cannot be obtainable; otherwise its attainment would put an end to the process. An end that satisfies these conditions is an ideal…
Thus the formulation and pursuit of ideals is a means by which to put meaning and significance into his life and into the history of which he is part.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, On purposeful systems., 1972, p. 237, as cited in: William E. Smith (2008) The Creative Power. p. 58.

Life , History , Parting

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 20.

Problem , Thinking

“The higher standard of living, the more consideration we give to the fun we derive from what we do and its meaningfulness.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Ackoff (1994, p. 71) cited in: James P. Lewis (2002) Working Together: 12 Principles for Achieving Excellence. p. 35.
1990s

“Knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that it's intent is to be useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone "memorizes" information (as less-aspiring test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would infer further knowledge.”

Russell L. Ackoff

As cited in: Jeff A. Riley and Kemal A. Delic (2010) "Enterprise Knowledge Clouds". In: Handbook of Cloud Computing. Borko Furht, Armando Escalante ed. Springer 2010.
Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985, From Data to Wisdom, 1989

Knowledge

“The effectiveness of any model used to describe and understand behavior of a particular system as a whole ultimately depends on the degree to which that model accurately represents that system. Nevertheless, there have been and are situations in which application of deterministic or animate models to social systems have produced useful results for a short period of time. However, in a longer run, such mismatches usually result in less than desirable results because critical aspects of the social systems were omitted in the less complex model that was used.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Ackoff (1999, p. 34) cited in: Michael C. Jackson (2000) Systems Approaches to Management. p. 234.
1990s

Behavior , Understanding , Time , Animals

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1960s, Management misinformation systems, 1967, p. 147.

Suffering

“In June of 1964 the research group and academic program moved to Penn bringing with it most of the faculty, students, and research projects. Our activities flourished in the very supportive environment that Penn and Wharton provided. The wide variety of faculty members that we were able to involve in our activities significantly enhanced our capabilities. By the mid-1960s I had become uncomfortable with the direction, or rather, the lack of direction, of professional Operations Research. I had four major complaints.
First, it had become addicted to its mathematical tools and had lost sight of the problems of management. As a result it was looking for problems to which to apply its tools rather than looking for tools that were suitable for solving the changing problems of management. Second, it failed to take into account the fact that problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Reality consists of systems of problems, problems that are strongly interactive, messes. I believed that we had to develop ways of dealing with these systems of problems as wholes. Third, Operations Research had become a discipline and had lost its commitment to interdisciplinarity. Most of it was being carried out by professionals who had been trained in the subject, its mathematical techniques. There was little interaction with the other sciences professions and humanities. Finally, Operations Research was ignoring the developments in systems thinking — the methodology, concepts, and theories being developed by systems thinkers.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xiii
Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Way , Mathematics , Support , Problem

“An organization's mission statement (1) should contain its reasons for existence and its most general aspirations, its ideals. (2) It should identify in very general terms the way(s) by which the organization will pursue its ideals, that is, the business it wants to be in. (3) It should formulate the ways by which it will attempt to serve each of its stakeholder groups. (4) It should meet the preceding requirements in a way that is exciting and challenging to all its stakeholders. Finally, (5) it should establish the uniqueness of the organization.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 83.

Way , Business

“A great deal of study has been directed to denning 'best decisions,' particularly since the pioneering work of mathematical statisticians (such as Wald), of mathematicians (such as von Neumann), of economists (such as Arrow)… The main effect of this development on the practice of OR has been the growing realization that there are decision objectives other than maximizing expected return and minimizing maximum loss. That is, in many practical situations there are criteria of optimality that are more appropriate than these two mentioned.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1950s, The development of operations research as a science, 1956, p. 270.

Mathematics , Optimism , Decision , Study

“Analysis of a system reveals how it works; it provides know-how, knowledge, not understanding; that is, explanations of why it works the way it does.”

Russell L. Ackoff

This [understanding of why systems work] requires synthetic thinking... Analysis is the way scientists conduct research. Synthetic thinking is exemplified by design.
Ackoff & Greenberg (2008) Turning Learning Right Side Up. p. 61 as cited in: Stephen M Millett (2011) Managing the Future: A Guide to Forecasting and Strategic Planning. p. 52.
2000s

Way , Understanding , Knowledge

“I began graduate work in the philosophy of sciences at the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 where I came under the influence of the “grand old man” of the department, the eminent philosopher E. A. Singer, Jr. Because of the informality of the department he created I began to collaborate with two younger members of the faculty, both of whom were former students of Singer, Thomas A. Cown and C. West Churchman.
Three aspects of Singer's philosophy had a particularly strong influence on me. First, that the practice of philosophy, its application, was necessary for the development of philosophy itself. Second, that effective work on “real” problems required an interdisciplinary approach. Third, that the social area needed more work than any of the other domains of science and that this was the most difficult.
We developed a concept of a research group that would enable us to practice philosophy in the social domain by dealing with real problems. The organization we designed was called “The Institute of Experimental Method.””

Russell L. Ackoff

With the participation of a number of other graduate students in philosophy and a few other members of the faculty we started this institute on a completely informal basis.
Preface, cited in Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems thinking: Managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture http://booksite.elsevier.com/samplechapters/9780123859150/Front_Matter.pdf. Elsevier, 2011. p. xii
Towards a Systems Theory of Organization, 1985

Problem , Strong , Universe , Science

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1960s, A concept of corporate planning, 1969, p. 1 as cited in: George David Hughes (1997) Marketing management: a planning approach. p. 14 and many other works.

Men , Peace , Way , Future

“Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are extracted from messes by analysis. Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Cited in Donella Meadows (2008) Thinking in Systems: a Primer. p. 1.
1970s, The future of operational research is past, 1979

Problem , Change

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, On purposeful systems., 1972, p. 39, as cited in: Jacob Hendrik Galjaard (2009) De droom van mijnheer Ariyoshi. p. 89:

Way

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1950s, The development of operations research as a science, 1956, p. 265, the lead paragraph ; Cited in: Joe Kelly (1969) Organizational behaviour. p. 26.

History , Study , Science

“The extensive literature addressed to the definition or characterization of science is filled with inconsistent points of view and demonstrates that an adequate definition is not easy to attain. Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that the meaning of science is not fixed, but is dynamic. As science has evolved, so has its meaning. It takes on a new meaning and significance with successive ages.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1960s, Scientific method: optimizing applied research decisions, 1962, p. 1.

Age , Literature , Science , Success