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.

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

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.

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

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.

No problem stays solved in a dynamic environment.

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

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.

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

It is the satisfaction we derive from 'going there' in contrast to the satisfaction derived from 'getting there.' Recreation provides 'the pause that refreshes.' It recreates creators.

The future is better dealt with using assumptions than forecasts.

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

The objective of education is learning, not teaching

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

For me there has never been an amount of money that makes it worth doing something that is not fun.

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.

Omnicompetence,' the ability to obtain whatever one wants or needs, is an unattainable but continuously approachable ideal for all mankind - past, present, and future.

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

The most valuable and least replacable resource is time.

Our ability to solve problem is limited by our conception of what is feasible.