Russell L. Ackoff Quotes

To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.

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.

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.

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.

No problem stays solved in a dynamic environment.

It is far better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right.

Managers who don't know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure.

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.

In systems thinking, increases in understanding are believed to be obtainable by expanding the systems to be understood, not by reducing them to their elements. Understanding proceeds from the whole to its parts, not from the parts to the whole as knowledge does.

Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without its being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant.

We can only learn from mistakes, by identifying them, determining their source, and correcting them... people learn more from their own mistakes than from the successes of others.

Creativity is the ability to identify self-imposed constraints, remove them, and explore the consequences of their removal.

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.

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.

Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.

The future is better dealt with using assumptions than forecasts.

Nothing is harder to topple than a fact that supports a deeply held prejudice denied by its holder.

Most corporate mission statements are worthless. They consist largely of pious platitudes such as: "We will hold ourselves to the highest standards of professionalism and ethical behavior." They often formulate necessities as objectives; for example, "to achieve sufficient profit." This is like a person saying his mission is to breathe sufficiently.

The objective of education is learning, not teaching

A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say "no" but none to say "yes."

Art inspires, produces an unwillingness to settle for what we have and a desire for something better. It is the product and producer of creative activity, change; it is essential for continuous development.

So much time is currently spent in worrying about the future that the present is allowed to go to hell.

The most valuable and least replacable resource is time.

Common sense … has the very curious property of being more correct retrospectively than prospectively. It seems to me that one of the principal criteria to be applied to successful science is that its results are almost always obvious retrospectively; unfortunately, they seldom are prospectively. Common sense provides a kind of ultimate validation after science has completed its work; it seldom anticipates what science is going to discover.

Unless people can express themselves well in ordinary English, they don't know what they are talking about.