Quotes from Russell L. Ackoff

For me there has never been an amount of money that makes it worth doing something that is not fun.

A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say "no" but none to say "yes."

To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.

The objective of education is learning, not teaching

We can only learn from mistakes, by identifying them, determining their source, and correcting them... people learn more from their own mistakes than from the successes of others.

Sommerhoff formalized the insights of Rosenblueth and Wiener, and rigorously showed how goal-directed behavior could be made conceptually compatible with a deterministic mechanical conception of nature.

Aun cuando la aceptación de todas las orientaciones (retornar a un pasado previo, prolongar la situación actual, o acelerar la llegada del futuro) parezca implicar cierto cinismo o resignación hacia el mundo, la realidad es diferente.

Our ability to solve problem is limited by our conception of what is feasible.

You rarely improve an organisation as a whole by improving the performance of one or more of its parts

All through school, we are shown that making a mistake is a bad thing, something for which we are downgraded. This reveals how little conventional schools are interested in learning, because we never learn by doing something right; we already know how to do it. Doing it right does confirm what we already know, and this has some value, but it contributes nothing to learning. We

The result is a book that cannot be read easily. It requires study. We hope that some will have the patience and inclination to do so.

Exams do not assess anything significant to the future of children, because no one knows how to assess or measure the key factors to the future success of any person, child or adult. They are a closed system; tests exist for their own sake. They measure the ability of the entire school community—children, parents, teachers, administrators—to focus all their efforts on producing good results on tests! Nothing more, nothing less. To

La elección es creativa y, por lo tanto, impredecible. Al toparse con una elección predecible, ya no se trata propiamente de una elección.

La ciencia, (...), involucra la búsqueda de similaridades entre cosas que aparentemente son diferentes. El arte, por el contrario, debe buscar diferencias entre cosas que aparentemente son iguales. La ciencia busca lo general, mientras que el arte va por lo único.

There are three types of parents—first, those who are always fussing after their children, controlling and correcting them and trying to make them walk in the same paths as themselves; then the infinitely preferable variety, who neglect their children altogether; and lastly, the ideal kind, who watch their children from a distance and are ready with encouragement and friendship when that is needed. (Viola, p. 35)

So much time is currently spent in worrying about the future that the present is allowed to go to hell.

Most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload.

The most valuable and least replacable resource is time.

Managers who don't know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure.

The future is better dealt with using assumptions than forecasts.

Omnicompetence,' the ability to obtain whatever one wants or needs, is an unattainable but continuously approachable ideal for all mankind - past, present, and future.