Russell L. Ackoff Quotes

69 Sourced Quotes

The effort to get rid of what we do not want is reactive, retrospectively oriented problem solving. The effort to obtain what we want is proactive, prospectively oriented problem solving.

Russell L. Ackoff
Most corporate mission statements are worthless.... [Corporations] often formulate necessities as objectives: For example, 'to achieve sufficient profit.' This is like a person saying his mission is to breathe sufficiently

Russell L. Ackoff
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
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
Because we cannot yet (1) characterize all the possible experimental designs along quantitative scales and (2) generate cost-of-error functions, comparisons must be made in specific contexts rather than by use of analytic optimizing.

Russell L. Ackoff
In reactive problem solving we walk into the future facing the past — we move away from, rather than toward, something. This often results in unforseen consequences that are more distasteful than the deficiencies removed.

Russell L. Ackoff
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.

Russell L. Ackoff
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
The less important an issue is, the more time managers spend discussing it. More time is spent on small talk than is spent on large talk. Most talk is about what matters least. What matters least is what most of us know most about.

Russell L. Ackoff
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
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
A mission statement should define the business that the organization wants to be in, not necessarily what it is in.

Russell L. Ackoff
Mistake 2:
Managers need all the information they want. Most MIS designers "determine" what information is needed by asking managers what information they would like to have. This is based on the assumption that managers know what information they need and want.

Russell L. Ackoff
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
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
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
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. This [understanding of why systems work] requires synthetic thinking... Analysis is the way scientists conduct research. Synthetic thinking is exemplified by design.

Russell L. Ackoff
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
Over time, every way of thinking generates important problems that it cannot solve.

Russell L. Ackoff
My experience indicates that most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload. They must spend a great deal of time separating the relevant documents. For example, I have found that I receive an average of 43 hours of unsolicited reading material each week. The solicited material is usually half again this amount.

Russell L. Ackoff
The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.

Russell L. Ackoff
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
Managers who don't know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure. For example, those who want a high quality of work life but don't know how to measure it, often settle for wanting a high standard of living because they can measure it.

Russell L. Ackoff
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 problems... 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
The less sure managers are of their opinions, the more vigorously they defend them. Managers do not waste their time defending beliefs they hold strongly – they just assert them. Nor do they bother to refute what they strongly believe is false.

Russell L. Ackoff
Every culture has a shared pattern of thinking. It is the cement that holds a culture together, gives it unity. A culture's characteristic way of thinking is imbedded in its concept of the nature of reality, its world view.

Russell L. Ackoff
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
Information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it.

Russell L. Ackoff
Scientific models have all these connotations. They are representations of states, objects, and events. They are idealized in the sense that they are less complicated than reality and hence easier to use for research purposes. These models are easier to manipulate and "carry" than the real thing. The simplicity of models, compared with reality, lies in the fact that only the relevant properties of reality are represented.

Russell L. Ackoff
A problem never exists in isolation; it is surrounded by other problems in space and time. The more of the context of a problem that a scientist can comprehend, the greater are his chances of finding a truly adequate solution.

Russell L. Ackoff