Geburtstag: 12. Februar 1919
Todesdatum: 29. Oktober 2009
Russell Lincoln Ackoff war ein amerikanischer Organisationstheoretiker.
Russel Ackoff war Pionier in den Gebieten Operations Research und Systemdenken.
— Russell L. Ackoff
Context: 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.
p. 8, bold text cited in: Gregory H. Watson (2010).
— Russell L. Ackoff
Context: 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.
p. 16, bold text cited in: Gerald Haigh (2008) Inspirational, and Cautionary Tales for Would-be School Leaders. p. 142.
— Russell L. Ackoff
Context: 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.
p. 4, bold text cited in: Colin J. Neill, Phillip A. Laplante, Joanna F. DeFranco (2011) Antipatterns: Managing Software Organizations and People.
— Russell L. Ackoff
Context: The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
Ackoff (2007) as cited in: Stefan Stern (2009) "Fond farewell to a brilliant thinker". in: Financial Times, November 9, 2009.
— Russell L. Ackoff
Context: … All other languages can be translated into the thing-language, but the thing-language cannot be translated into any other language. Its terms can only be reduced to what are called "ostensive" definitions. These consist merely of pointing or otherwise evoking a direct experience. Hence, the thing-language is absolutely basic. Out of this basic language, we build up the other languages of the sciences, beginning with the language of physics, and proceeding to biology, psychology, and the social sciences.
Charles West Churchman, Russell Lincoln Ackoff (1950) Methods of inquiry: an introduction to philosophy and scientific method. p. 185; Partly cited in: Britton, G. A., & McCallion, H. (1994). An overview of the Singer/Churchman/Ackoff school of thought. Systems Practice, Vol 7 (5), 487-521.
— Russell L. Ackoff
Cited in Donella Meadows (2008) Thinking in Systems: a Primer. p. 1.
— Russell L. Ackoff
p. ix in the Preface: "Creating the Corporate Future: Plan or be Planned For," Wiley, April 27, 1981
— Russell L. Ackoff
p. 15-16.
— Russell L. Ackoff
p. 37 cited in: Andrew Carey (2008) Inside Project Red Stripe: Incubating Innovation and Teamwork at the Economist. p. 49.
— Russell L. Ackoff
p. 1 as cited in: Henry Mintzberg (1994) Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning. p. 98.
