About Dr.

Russell Ackoff
The characteristic way of management that we have taught in the Western world is [to] take a complex
system, divide it into parts and then try to manage each part as well as possible. And if that’s done, the
system as a whole will behave well. That’s absolutely false, because it’s possible to improve the performance
of each part taken separately and destroy the system at the same time. (The Deming Library, Vol. 21)

Look what the educational system does to creativity. Every child learns at a very early stage that when
they’re asked a question in school they must first ask themselves a question: What answer does the asker
expect? That’s the way you get through school, by providing people with the answers they expect. Now, one
thing about an answer that somebody else expects is it can’t be creative because it’s already known. What
we ought to be trying to do with children is get them to give us answers that we don’t expect—to stimulate
creativity. We kill it in school. (The Deming Library, Vol. 21)

Dr. Ackoff met W. Edwards Deming during his pioneering work on operations research. In Volume 21 of The
Deming Library, Dr. Ackoff discusses with Dr. Deming the practical importance of viewing schools and other
kinds of organizations as social systems (A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers).

In their conversation, Dr. Deming and Dr. Ackoff agree that the need to understand a system applies to
education and business—indeed, to any organization. The education system deeply affects the industrial
workplace and because of how people are taught to think or not taught in schools. Dr. Ackoff challenges the
viewer to examine the results of producing “a group of people who think in the way we have been thinking
for years rather than departing and developing new concepts and new ways of understanding.”

Dr. Ackoff clarifies the differences between conventional thinking and systems thinking. An understanding of
the difference between analysis and synthesis is crucial for an introduction to the theory of a system. Dr.
Ackoff explains that analysis has been the dominant mode of thought in the Western world for 400 years.
Analysis explains how the pieces of a system work. Synthesis is needed to understand the why of a system
and the interactions between its parts as they work together. Understanding the implications of seeing the
organization as a system leads to the conclusion that cooperation is more effective than internal competition
in leading any organization to work more effectively.

Also, vital to understanding why organizational health depends on the new way of thinking is the difference
between growth and development. Dr. Ackoff says:

“The appropriate end of a social system is development, not growth. Our society doesn’t yet understand the
distinction between them. You can develop without growing, and you can grow without developing. A
rubbish heap grows; it doesn’t develop. Ed [Dr. Deming], you’re still developing, but you’re not growing any
more.” (The Deming Library, Vol. 21)

Later, Dr. Ackoff worked with CC-M Productions to complete a series of four videos in which he explains his
theory of the evolution of organizational thinking from the mechanical systems of the early 20th Century
production lines, to the biological systems epitomized by the auto companies which emphasized growth
above all else, to the social systems model in which development of the organization and its employees
begins to be seen as essential to long-term survival. (Better Management for a Changing World, Vols. 1-4)

Since 1986 Dr. Ackoff has been the Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science, The
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a visiting professor at the Olin School of
Business, Washington University, St. Louis, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and The
University of Hull in the United Kingdom. He received his undergraduate degree in architecture and his Ph.D.
in Philosophy of Science from the University of Pennsylvania. At this university he was the founder and
Chairman of the Social Systems Science Department and The Busch Center, which specialized in systems
planning, research, and design.

Dr. Ackoff is the author and co-author of 23 books, including Redesigning the Future, The Art of Problem
Solving, Creating the Corporate Future, Revitalizing Western Economies, Management in Small Doses,
Ackoff’s Fables, The Democratic Corporation, Ackoff’s Best, and Redesigning Society with Sheldon Rovin. His
latest books are Idealized Design with Jason Magidson and Herbert Addison and Management f-Laws with
Herbert Addison and Sally Bibbs.