We lost another of the absolutely best minds in management history, this week. Somehow, many managers, do not know of Russell Ackoff’s ideas. I find that amazing. Dr. Ackoff is one of two management thinkers that any manager, that is serious about improving management results in their organization, must study (the other is Dr. Deming).

The Curious Cat management library includes many articles by Russell Ackoff. Transformation and Redesign at the White House Communications Agency by March Laree Jacques is a great articles exploring adopting his ideas.

Like many management greats he had no limit to the great ideas he put forth. He believed in the value of people and the importance of social systems. He is well known his ideas on systems thinking and specifically human systems. He understood to create effective management structures the human element must be at the heart of the system. He firmly believed in respect for people and his management ideas built on providing the opportunity for people to flourish.

We lost another great management mind. But by reading Ackoff’s books and articles and learning from him we can continue the improvements he brought to management during his life. His ideas will continue to provide those that adopt them great success for a long long time. And the management community will continue to build on his work and that of others to help managers improve their organizations.

Earlier this year we lost Peter Scholtes, another management leader and friend of Russell Ackoff. Russell wrote the forward to Peter’s Leader’s Handbook.

Those words also describe Russell Ackoff perfectly. He inspired those he worked with to adapt and transform his ideas as they worked to improve their organizations. Take this opportunity to learn more about his ideas, you will not be disappointed.

Related: Russell L. Ackoff, Management Consultant & Systems Thinker, 1919 -2009 – Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs – Quotes By Dr. Russell L. Ackoff – Dr. Russell Ackoff Webcast on Systems Thinking – From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking – Traffic Congestion and a Non-Solution – Write it Down to Improve Learning – Designing a New Organization – Ackoff’s New Book: Management f-Laws – The Importance of Management Improvement

Dr. Ackoff is one of two management thinkers that any manager, that is serious about improving management results in their organization, should study (the other is Dr. Deming). There are plenty of others that are also great resources. From part 2 of his talk: “Why-questions, about objects called systems, cannot be answered by the use of analysis… The product of explanation is understanding… The product of analysis is how things work, never why they work the way they do. Explanations always lie outside the system, never inside it.”

Synthesis (thinking about systems) involves 3 steps: 1) what is this system of which this is a part of; 2) understanding the behavior of the containing whole; 3) identify the role of function of the system in question within the containing system. Every system is defined by its role in the larger system.

Related: posts on Russ Ackoff’s ideas – Ackoff’s New Book: Management f-Laws – Write Down Predictions – Knowledge Management – Management is Prediction

John Hunter on the top of the Bear’s Hump trail in the park, Waterton, Canada. A great, very steep trail.

• Agility vs. Six Sigma – “Process improvement should be part of a well run system, as should innovation. Deming, who many believe focused only process improvement, knew the importance of both. See several of Deming’s ideas on innovation.”
• The Public Sector and Deming – Madison’s quality improvement efforts began after then-Mayor James F. Sensenbrenner and his staff were exposed to the teaching of W. Edwards Deming in 1983. and a follow up Public Management II: Actually Deming did acknowledge that the United States government was not designed to be as efficient as possible. From page 198 of Out of the Crisis “Government service is to be judged on equity as well as on efficiency.” He then quotes Oscar Ornati “We have forgotten that the function of government is more equity oriented than efficiency oriented.”
• How Not to Convert Equity – “In no way does increasing their leverage convert equity that might melt away… If the value of their house fell $300,000 before or after this supposed ‘conversion’ they would ‘lose’ (on paper) the same amount: $300,000.”
• Management Improvement Leaders – Russell Ackoff – frankly I find it difficult to imagine a list management thought leader list, not including his name. Organizational development, systems thinking, management improvement, planning, policy deployment, learning. George Box: statistics, design of experiments, finding solutions (problem solving, process improvement), learning, management improvement…
• The photo shows me from one of my most enjoyable days from 2005 hiking in Glacier Waterton International Peace Park

Why Write it down?

Right on. In meetings writing down decisions (what is the issue, who is going to do what…) is very helpful. It is very easy for people to think people agree to some somewhat clear statements made in the meeting. Only later it becomes obvious several people have different understandings (sometimes this is even really basically know in the meeting but it is easier to let things slide instead of confronting the disagreement – but this is not helpful, it just means the issue is not properly address, it might make the meeting easier but that should not be the goal). Writing it down greatly reduces the chance of miscommunication.

Russell Ackoff also has some great stuff on the importance of documenting decisions – both to serve as guide posts to future action and to serve as documentation that can be examined over time to find historic weaknesses and strengths with decision making in the organization. The Team Handbook is a very good book for improving team meetings and team performance.

Ackoff on decision making (pdf):

Comments on Who Influences Your Thinking? – Survey results -

> 1. Are people getting most of their information
> from other sources?
That would be my guess.

Similar to the phenomenon of “the long tail” which is an interesting topic in its own right. We tend to focus on the popular few (books, musicians, movies, authors, computer programs…) but often the sum of the less popular many is more significant. See:

• The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson, Wired, Oct 2004 “The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon’s book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are”
• Continued discussion of the Amazon figures in a Chiris Anderson’s blog. “I’ve now spoken to Jeff Bezos (and others) about this. He doesn’t have a hard figure for the percentage of sales of products not available offline, but reckons that it’s closer to 25-30%.”
• The long tail – a secret sauce for companies like Amazon.com, Netflix and Apple Computer, Motley Fool, NPR Audio Recording

Getting back to the question raised by the “Who Influences Your Thinking” post; More importantly I believe they (we) are just failing to get all we should.
(more…)

re: What about Designing New Organizations?

Guidance for “designing a new organisation and not for analysis of an existing one?” (edited)

I would add Russell Ackoff to the top of the list of those to consult. Start with his book Re-Creating the Corporation and continue to quite a few of his other books. After Ackoff, I would look to Deming and Senge. Other interesting folks would be Dee Hock, Brian Joiner, Peter Scholtes, Robert Rodin…

Few truly think about designing a new organization. Most people are interested in how to improve their existing organization. Therefore, it follows most people interesting in having an effect in the real world have focused on how to help those who are looking to be helped. Ackoff has done a huge amount of work in idealized design and thinking about the big ideas that can drive dramatic change. His ideas are exceptional. He even offers a plan for modeling the idealized organization and then a plan for how to transform the organization based on practical ideas that are feasible in the real world.

Deming’s ideas are very difficult to fit into most existing organizations easily because they require so many changes in the traditional style of management. However in designing a new organization from scratch you can adopt many of the ideas from the beginning. Free, Perfect and Now, by Robert Rodin, is a great book showing the adoption of these ideas by a company. When the leader is convinced it is possible to transform an existing company.

For a manufacturing organization I would look to Lean ideas (Toyota and Womack). Lean thinking is, of course, valuable to any organization but especially so in manufacturing.

You can find more on the ideas of those I list above through the Curious Cat Management Improvement Library.

John Hunter