Short description
Executives, managers, and students have been familiar with Russ Ackoff since the 1940s.
Long description
This prolific management author, consultant and teacher now has his most enduring pieces collected into one volume for the general business reader and student. Ackoff became prominent for his pioneering work in operations research and systems analysis and his cogent exploration of systems and planning, with their effects on business, form the backbone of this collection. He is considered one of the most versatile thinkers of our day, even beyond his management work. The essays included in Ackoff's "Best" range from corporate planning and understanding the difference between growth and development, to recent work on applying systems thinking to small teams to make them more effective. This compilation argues for the value of a systems approach in the businesses of the late 1990s.
Review
Russ Ackoff uses words that cut through the familiar and open doors in one's brain. -Arie de Geus, author of The Living Company
Table of contents
- SYSTEMS
- Our Changing Concept of the World
- Reflections on Systems and Their Models
- Growth versus Development
- Toward a System of Systems Concepts
- Beating the System
- PLANNING
- The Nature of Planning
- Alternative Types of Planning
- Problem Treatments
- Mess Management
- Ends Planning
- @aMission Statements
- Creativity and Constraints
- APPLICATIONS
- Consumer Design
- Education
- @aNever Let Your Schooling Interfere with Your Education
- Crime
- The Effect of Advertising on Sales
- A Study of Relations
- On Pairs and Trios
- The Smallest Social Systems
- Why People Drink
- Toward Understanding Objectives
- Corporate Perestroika
- The Internal Market Economy
- Design of Management Systems
- SCIENCE
- The Nature of Science and Methodology
- Objectivity
- Rationality
- The Future of Operational Research Is Past
- Epilogue
- The Role of Business in a Democratic Society
- Index