Russell L. Ackoff: System

“The systems approach to problems focuses on systems taken as a whole, not on their parts taken separately. Such an approach is concerned with total- system performance even when a change in only one or a few of its parts is contemplated because there are some properties of systems that can only be treated adequately from a holistic point of view. These properties derive from the relationship between parts of systems: how the parts interact and fit together”

Russell L. Ackoff

Cited in: Haluk Demirkan, James C. Spohrer, Vikas Krishna (2011) The Science of Service Systems. p. 274.
1970s, Towards a System of Systems Concepts, 1971

Problem , Change , Parting

“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”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 21.

Problem

“[The environment of a system is] a set of elements and their relevant properties, which elements are not part of the system, but a change in any of which can cause or produce a change in the state of the system.”

Russell L. Ackoff

1970s, Towards a System of Systems Concepts, 1971

Change , Parting

“The basic managerial idea introduced by systems thinking, is that to manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Russell L. Ackoff and Fred Emery (1972) On purposeful systems, cited in: Lloyd Dobyns, Clare Crawford-Mason (1994) Thinking about quality: progress, wisdom, and the Deming philosophy. p. 40.
1970s

Behavior , Idea , Thinking , Parting

“Because a cause was taken to be sufficient for its effect, nothing was required to explain the effect other than the cause. Consequently, the quest for causes was environment-free. It employed what we now call 'closed-system' thinking. Laws. —like that of freely falling bodies—-were formulated so as to exclude environmental effects.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 10.

Law , Thinking

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Ackoff (1973) "Science in the Systems Age: beyond IE, OR and MS." in: Operations Research Vol 21, pp. 664.
1970s

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 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

“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

“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

“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

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 14.

Problem , Parting

“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

Cited in: Can Alpaslan, Ian Mitroff (2011) Swans, Swine, and Swindlers: Coping with the Growing Threat of Mega-Crises and Mega-Messes. p. 16.
1970s, The future of operational research is past, 1979

Behavior , Problem , Parting , Dependency

“A system is a set of two or more elements that satisfies the following three conditions. (1) The behavior of each element has an effect on the behavior of the whole. (2) The behavior of the elements and their effects on the whole are interdependent. the way each element behaves and the way it affects the whole depends on how at least one other element behaves. (3) However subgroups of the elements are formed, each has an effect on the behavior of the whole and none has an independent effect on it.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1980s, Creating the Corporate Future, 1981, p. 15-16.

Way , Behavior , Dependency

“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.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 14.

Age , Parting

“Despite the importance of systems concepts and the attention that they have received and are receiving, we do not yet have a unified or integrated set (i. e., a system) of such concepts. Different terms are used to refer to the same thing and the same term is used to refer to different things. This state is aggravated by the fact that the literature of systems research is widely dispersed and is therefore difficult to track. Researchers in a wide variety of disciplines and interdisciplines are contributing to the conceptual development of the systems sciences but these contributions are not as interactive and additive as they might be.”

Russell L. Ackoff

As cited in: Journal of systems management. Vol. 25, p. 39. Association for Systems Management, 1974.
1970s, Towards a System of Systems Concepts, 1971

Literature , Science

“Another common deficiency is the failure of some panaceas to take into account a social system's developmental responsibilities to its stakeholders.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1990s, Re-Creating the Corporation (1999), p. 253.

Failure

“Doing philosophy was an opportunity to learn something new. I expected this to be an adjunct to my practice of architecture. But it turned out the other way. It turned out that the philosophy of science gave me the opportunity to design social systems, and I was more interested in people-oriented systems than in buildings. They were both design, but different kinds of design. I like creating things.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Ackoff cited in: Carole Novak (2000) " Interview with Russell L. Ackoff http://www.ait.net/technos/tq_09/3ackoff.php". in: Technos Quartely. Fall 2000 Vol. 9 No. 3. This quote is the answer to the question, why Ackoff switched from architecture to philosophy in his graduate studies.
2000s

People , Way , Learning , Science

“In the last two decades we have witnessed the emergence of the "system" as a key concept in scientific research. Systems, of course, have been studied for centuries, but something new has been added… The tendency to study systems as an entity rather than as a conglomeration of parts is consistent with the tendency in contemporary science no longer to isolate phenomena in narrowly confined contexts, but rather to open interactions for examination and to examine larger and larger slices of nature. Under the banner of systems research (and its many synonyms) we have also witnessed a convergence of many more specialized contemporary scientific developments… These research pursuits and many others are being interwoven into a cooperative research effort involving an ever-widening spectrum of scientific and engineering disciplines. We are participating in what is probably the most comprehensive effort to attain a synthesis of scientific knowledge yet made.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Ackoff (1959), "Games, Decisions and Organizations," General Systems, 4 (1959), p. 145-150; cited in: Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968) General System Theory. p. 9.
1950s

Nature , Knowledge , Effort , Study

“We have also come to realize that no problem ever exists in complete isolation. Every problem interacts with other problems and is therefore part of a set of interrelated problems, a system of problems I choose to call such a system a mess … Furthermore solutions to most problems produce other problems… a financial problem, a maintenance problem, and conflict among family members for its use.”

Russell L. Ackoff

Source: 1970s, Redesigning the future, 1974, p. 21 as cited in: Frederick M. Zimmerman (2011) From Riches to Rags at a Time of Prosperity, p. 12.

Family , Problem , Parting