The curious thing is the righter you do the wrong thing the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake and correct it you become wronger. So it’s better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right. Almost every major social problem that confronts us today is a consequence of trying to do the wrong things righter.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Change itself is constantly changing.
—Russell L. Ackoff
The only thing more detrimental to organizational development than corruption is tolerating it.
—Russell L. Ackoff
The less we understand a phenomenon, the more variables we require to explain it.
—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 organizations 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
A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say “no” but none to say “yes”. Bureaucrats can find an infinite number of reasons for rejecting any proposed change, but can find none for accepting it.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Those who serve management should focus on those that they serve, not on the services they render or the instruments used in rendering them.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Jargon is noise that keeps our brains from understanding what our mouths are saying.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Continuous improvement isn’t nearly as important as discontinuous improvement.
—Russell L. Ackoff
The product of an innovative act may be either good or bad. Not all acts of creativity are beneficial or satisfying. For example, a newly designed article of clothing may actually be repulsive to potential uses. Many new products fail in the market place.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Good secretaries serve as filters and condensers of solicited and unsolicited information.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Problems seldom (if ever) exist in isolation. Problems are extracted from reality by analysis. Almost any problem exists as part of a set of interacting problems called by some a mess.
—Russell L. Ackoff
The cost of preparing for critical events that do not occur is generally very small in comparison to the cost of being unprepared for those that do.
—Russell L. Ackoff
When a mess, which is a system of problems, is taken apart, it loses its essential properties and so does each of its parts. The behavior of a mess depends more on how the treatment of its parts interact than how they act independently of each other. A partial solution to a whole system of problems is better than whole solutions of each of its parts taken separately.
—Russell L. Ackoff
The best place to solve a problem is not necessarily where it appears.
—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
I do not deny that most managers lack a good deal of information that they should have, but I do deny that this is the most important informational deficiency from which they suffer. It seems to me that they suffer more from an overabundance of irrelevant information.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Managers cannot learn from doing things right, only from doing them wrong.
—Russell L. Ackoff
Explanations always lie outside the system, never inside.
—Russell L. Ackoff
The criteria that you use is perfectly simple, I will only improve the part if it results in an improvement of the whole. If it doesn’t I will not change the part. Which is exactly the opposite of what we do in management normally.
—Russell L. 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 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
When you get rid of what you don’t want, you do not necessarily get what you do want and you may get something you want a lot less. It is that simple…..anyone that ever watches television knows that!
—Russell L. Ackoff
Changes in a field are never created by experts, but from outsiders looking at the field.
—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… 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 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
The hope was that mechanization and automation would relieve people of many onerous—dull and repetitive—tasks. Those onerous tasks that remain in developed countries are increasingly exported to less developed countries. Unfortunately, the exporting countries have not made a significant effort to replace the jobs they have lost in this way. They could do so by providing other more productive and demanding tasks.
—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
An improvement program must be directed at what you want, not at what you don’t want.
—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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Jack Penn South African Surgeon
- Carlos Fuentes Mexican novelist, diplomat
- William Osler Canadian Physician
- Philip Roth American Novelist, Short-story Writer
- Paul Fussell American Historian
- Martin Seligman American Psychologist
- Chester Barnard American Businessperson
- Clayton M. Christensen American Academic, Business Consultant
- Seth Godin American Entrepreneur
- Tim Ferriss American Self-help Author
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