Russell L. Ackoff - Re-Creating the Corporation (1999)

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

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
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
When a business is bought, it is bought for its potential—for its future, not its past.

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
A change of world view not only brings about profound cultural changes, but also is responsible for what historians call a "change of age." An age is a period of time in which the prevailing world view has remained relatively unchanged.

Russell L. Ackoff
A corporation that fails to see itself as an instrument of all its stakeholders will probably fail to use them, and be used by them, effectively enough to survive in the emerging environment.

Russell L. Ackoff
Analysis of a system reveals its structure and how it works. It provides the knowledge required to make it work efficiently and to repair it when it stops working. Its product is know-how, knowledge, not understanding. To enable a system to perform effectively we must understand it—we must be able to explain its behavior—and this requires being aware of its functions in the larger systems of which it is a part.

Russell L. Ackoff
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