Russell L. Ackoff > Quotes

“A good deal of the corporate planning I have observed is like a ritual rain dance; it has no effect on the weather that follows, but those who engage in it think it does. Moreover, it seems to me that much of the advice and instruction related to corporate planning is directed at improving the dancing, not the weather.”
― Russell Ackoff

“Nothing consumes time like nothing.”
― Russell Ackoff

“Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.”
― Russell Ackoff

“You rarely improve an organisation as a whole by improving the performance of one or more of its parts”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Systems Thinking for Curious Managers: With 40 New Management f-Laws

“Our ability to solve problem is limited by our conception of what is feasible.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, The Art of Problem Solving: Accompanied by Ackoff's Fables

“All through school, we are shown that making a mistake is a bad thing, something for which we are downgraded. This reveals how little conventional schools are interested in learning, because we never learn by doing something right; we already know how to do it. Doing it right does confirm what we already know, and this has some value, but it contributes nothing to learning. We”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“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 Ackoff

“The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. […] Complex problems do not have simple solutions.”
― Russell Ackoff

“The less we understand a phenomenon, the more variables we require to explain it.”
― Russell Ackoff

“As an aside, Sheldon Rovin in his first draft of a guide to Systems Thinking, repeated this old chestnut: The often-quoted tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, ‘When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.’ However, in government more advanced strategies are often employed, such as: 1. Buying a stronger whip. 2. Changing riders. 29 3. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 4.    Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses. 5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living impaired. 7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 82 8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed. 9. Providing extra funding/training to increase the dead horse’s performance. 10.  Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance. 3 11.  Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than live horses. 12.  Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. And, of course… 13.  Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Systems Thinking for Curious Managers: With 40 New Management f-Laws

“Exams do not assess anything significant to the future of children, because no one knows how to assess or measure the key factors to the future success of any person, child or adult. They are a closed system; tests exist for their own sake. They measure the ability of the entire school community—children, parents, teachers, administrators—to focus all their efforts on producing good results on tests! Nothing more, nothing less. To”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“What is sad is the fact that this entire growing industry has been developed around a system of education that is basically obsolete, and one that no longer serves the needs of the children growing up to face the world of the twenty-first century. It is sobering to consider the unsettling effect that the not-so-gradual dismantling of this educational system will have on the large number of employees who will no longer be serving a useful function in society. We have already seen similar societal upheavals in the transition that has occurred in the world of industrial production.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“A similar discrepancy between objective proclaimed and objective practised can be observed in most organisations. For example, one could mistakenly believe that the principal objective of universities is to educate students. But for Ackoff, the principal objective of a university is to provide job security and increase the standard of living and quality of life of those members of the faculty and administration who make the critical decisions. Teaching is the price that faculty members must pay to share in the benefits provided. Like any price, they try to minimise it. Note that the more senior and politically powerful teaching members of the faculty are, the less teaching they do.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Systems Thinking for Curious Managers: With 40 New Management f-Laws

“anyone who observes children closely soon comes to the conclusion that they cannot grow up and master the world quickly enough. Nature endows them with the innate drive to become adults. A child knows all too well the gulf that exists between himself and grown-ups, and is eager to bridge that gulf to reach the adult levels of achievement that he sees all around him. Indeed, only an enormous effort can stop a child from realizing her tremendous drive to grow and mature. This drive is a fundamental characteristic of young animals that is essential to the survival of species throughout the living world. It”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“One might wonder how on earth learning came to be seen primarily a result of teaching. Until quite recently, the world’s great teachers were understood to be people who had something fresh to say about something to people who were interested in hearing their message. Moses, Socrates, Aristotle, Jesus—these were people who had original insights, and people came from far and wide to find out what those insights were. One can see most clearly in Plato’s dialogues that people did not come to Socrates to “learn philosophy,” but rather to hear Socrates’ version of philosophy (and his wicked and witty attacks on other people’s versions), just as they went to other philosophers to hear (and learn) their versions. In other words, teaching was understood as public exposure of an individual’s perspective, which anyone could take or leave, depending on whether they cared about it. No one in his right mind thought that the only way you could become a philosopher was by taking a course from one of those guys. On the contrary, you were expected to come up with your own original worldview if you aspired to the title of philosopher.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“Those involved in the redesign process must know what they would do if they could do whatever they wanted. Such knowledge is essential if they are to set meaningful goals for the future. The outcome of such a design is idealized in the sense that the resulting system is ideal seeking, not ideal. It should be subject to continuous improvement with further experience and changing environments. The only certainty is that some of whatever we think we will want five or ten years from now will not be wanted then. Such a vision should be inspiring, a work of art. It should facilitate making short-run sacrifices for the sake of longer-run gains.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“The school is teeming with activity. The rooms are small and large, many are special-purpose rooms, like shops and labs, but most are furnished like rather shabby living or dining rooms in homes: lots of sofas, easy chairs, and tables. Lots of people sitting around talking, reading, and playing games. On an average rainy day—quite different from a beautiful suddenly snowy day, or a warm spring or fall day—most people are inside. But there will also be more than a few who are outside in the rain, and later will come in dripping and trying the patience of the few people inside who think the school should perhaps be a “dry zone.” There may be people in the photo lab developing or printing pictures they have taken. There may be a karate class, or just some people playing on mats in the dance room. Someone may be building a bookshelf or fashioning chain mail armor and discussing medieval history. There are almost certainly a few people, either together or separate, making music of one kind or another, and others listening to music of one kind or another. You will find adults in groups that include kids, or maybe just talking with one student. It would be most unusual if there were not people playing a computer game somewhere, or chess; a few people doing some of the school’s administrative work in the office—while others hang around just enjoying the atmosphere of an office where interesting people are always making things happen; there will be people engaged in role-playing games; other people may be rehearsing a play—it might be original, it might be a classic. They may intend production or just momentary amusement. People will be trading stickers and trading lunches. There will probably be people selling things. If you are lucky, someone will be selling cookies they baked at home and brought in to earn money. Sometimes groups of kids have cooked something to sell to raise money for an activity—perhaps they need to buy a new kiln, or want to go on a trip. An intense conversation will probably be in progress in the smoking area, and others in other places. A group in the kitchen may be cooking—maybe pizza or apple pie. Always, either in the art room or in any one of many other places, people will be drawing. In the art room they might also be sewing, or painting, and some are quite likely to be working with clay, either on the wheel or by hand. Always there are groups talking, and always there are people quietly reading here and there. One”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“The result is a book that cannot be read easily. It requires study. We hope that some will have the patience and inclination to do so.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events

“There is one other extremely important aspect of synthetic thinking. The systems with which we deal are becoming increasingly complex. Think, for example, of the difference between a neighborhood grocery store and a global chain of retail stores like Wal-Mart or the difference between a tent or shack and a skyscraper. Scientists are searching for a way of dealing effectively with such complexity. Unfortunately, most of them are approaching the subject analytically. The result is identification of such a large number of variables and relationships between them that we are not able to handle them. However, if complexity is approached synthetically, by design, as in the design of a skyscraper or a city, there seems to be no limit to the complexity we can handle effectively.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“What appears to be black on white to whites may appear to be all white to black.”
― Russell Ackoff

“Today, there are two worlds that use the word education with opposite meanings: One world consists of the schools and colleges (and even graduate schools) of our education complex, in which standardization prevails. In that world, an industrial training megastructure strives to turn out identical replicas of a product called “people educated for the twenty-first century.” The second is the world of information, knowledge, and wisdom, in which the real population of the world resides when not incarcerated in schools. In that world, learning takes place like it always did, and teaching consists of imparting one’s wisdom, among other things, to voluntary listeners.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“La elección es creativa y, por lo tanto, impredecible. Al toparse con una elección predecible, ya no se trata propiamente de una elección.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Creating the Corporate Future: Plan or be Planned For

“Perhaps the most costly disassembly in which our culture has been engaged is the disaggregation of life itself into work, play, learning, and inspiration. Each of these aspects of life has been separated from the others by creating institutions for engaging in only one at a time, excluding the other three as much as possible. Businesses are designed for work, not play, learning, or inspiration. Country clubs, theaters, and sports stadiums are designed for play, not work, learning or inspiration. Schools are designed for learning, not work, play, or inspiration. Museums and churches are designed for inspiration, not work, play, or learning. However, one of the most important products of systems thinking is the realization that the effectiveness with which any of these four functions can be carried out depends on the extent to which they are carried out together, in an integrated way.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Re-Creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century

“La ciencia, (...), involucra la búsqueda de similaridades entre cosas que aparentemente son diferentes. El arte, por el contrario, debe buscar diferencias entre cosas que aparentemente son iguales. La ciencia busca lo general, mientras que el arte va por lo único.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Creating the Corporate Future: Plan or be Planned For

“Reality consists of sets of interacting problems, systems of problems we call “messes.” As previously noted, problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Therefore, education for practice should develop and apply methodology for dealing holistically with systems of problems. Because messes are complex, this requires an ability to cope with complexity. It is much easier to deal with complexity through design in practice—for example, in designing a skyscraper—than in dealing with it academically in a classroom or research facility. The theory of complexity is not required for dealing with complexity in practice; design can handle it. To”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“When those managed, governed, or ruled know how to function better than those who manage, govern, or rule them, the less effective autocratic management or rule is. A democratic organization-that is, one in which the members have considerable freedom and opportunity to make choices-can't be adequately modeled organismically precisely because such modeling misses this most important characteristic of such a social system: the ability of its parts to make choices. This inadequacy is particularly apparent where problem solving is involved.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Ackoff's Best: His Classic Writings on Management

“The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter. If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better.”
― Russell L. Ackoff

“Sommerhoff formalized the insights of Rosenblueth and Wiener, and rigorously showed how goal-directed behavior could be made conceptually compatible with a deterministic mechanical conception of nature.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events

“The educational environment of children should encourage them to continue to explore the open-ended connections between their experiences, and to be receptive to new interconnections and interpretations of theories and explanations that they have either learned or developed. An oft-repeated story illustrates the deadening effect of thinking in terms of narrowly defined fields.16 A high school physics student was given the following problem on an examination: “Suppose you were in a tall building, and had a sensitive barometer in your possession. How would you use it to find the height of the building?” As anyone who has studied introductory physics will instantly recognize, the instructor was looking for the answer he had prepared his students to give—namely, measure the barometric pressure at the bottom and the top of the building, and calculate the height of the building, using the formula that relates the drop in barometric pressure to the increase in elevation going from the ground to the top of the building. The student in question, a very bright and highly independent soul, found it demeaning to provide an answer that he thought was trivially easy. Instead, he answered, “You can do it several ways. One is to drop the barometer from the top of the building and measure how long it takes to hit the ground [thus illustrating that he knew the relationship between height, distance, and time in gravitational free fall, another piece of ‘physics’]. Another is to attach the barometer to a long string, lower it to the ground, and measure the length of the string [no longer ‘physics,’ but rather ‘carpentry’].” The answer, of course, was declared wrong. The student objected strenuously and brought a storm of protest to bear on the examiner—who then agreed to repeat the same question and give the student an opportunity to provide the “correct” answer. The student, no more inclined to be compliant than before, answered, “I would go to the superintendent of the building and offer to give him the barometer as a gift if he would tell me how high his building is [now we have entered ‘economics’].” Leaving”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

“There are four different ways to treat problems: • Absolution • Resolution • Solution • Dissolution, redesign These form a hierarchy of effectiveness, from least to most. They are seldom made accessible to students in school. Below the university level, only two are ever used. In some curricula at the university level, three are exposed. The fourth and most effective way is rarely dealt with in the educational system, except in training for professions in which design is the principal process involved. Absolution.”
― Russell L. Ackoff, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track