Quotes About Organization

Organization is indispensable; for liberty arises and has meaning only within a self-regulating community of freely cooperating individuals. But, though indispensable, organization can also be fatal. Too much organization transforms men and women into automata, suffocates the creative spirit and abolishes the very possibility of freedom. As usual, the only safe course is in the middle, between the extremes of laissez-faire at one end of the sacle and of total control at the other.

Organization is indispensable; for liberty arises and has meaning only within a self-regulating community of freely co-operating individuals. But, though indispensable, organization can also be fatal. Too much organization transforms men and women into automata, suffocates the creative spirit and abolishes the very possibility of freedom. As usual, the only safe course is in the middle, between the extremes of laissez-faire at one end of the scale and of total control at the other.

La organización excesiva transforma a los hombres y mujeres en autómatas, sofoca el espíritu creador y suprime la misma posibilidad de la libertad.

Pero, aunque indispensable, la organización también puede ser fatal. La organización excesiva transforma a hombres y mujeres en autómatas, sofoca el espíritu creador y suprime la misma posibilidad de la libertad.

Civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political ineffiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic.

Geese were orderly beings, with principles and systems, whose existence denied all superiority of individual over individual of the same species (176).

Somewhere in the organisation, high in its upper reaches, were minds that churned out page after page of guidance notes, instructions, and policy statements. Most of these were filed and forgotten; seldom did they make any difference to the way in which people carried out their duties. But the procedure for procedures had to be gone through, in accordance with further procedural guidelines.

Order is the key to all problems.

I am orderly out of spirit of idleness, to save myself the trouble of looking after things...

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

It is your duty to advance the aims of the organization and also to help those who serve it. If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens you can never regain their respect and esteem

a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. —RUSSELL ACKOFF,

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes.... Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. -RUSSELL ACKOFF,' operations theorist

Hierarchical systems evolve from the bottom up. The purpose of the upper layers of the hierarchy is to serve the purposes of the lower layers.

System: A set of elements or parts that is coherently organized and interconnected in a pattern or structure that produces a characteristic set of behaviors, often classified as its "function" or "purpose.

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

Complex systems can evolve from simple systems only if there are stable intermediate forms. The resulting complex forms will naturally be hierarchic.

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. . . . Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. —RUSSELL ACKOFF,

Systems often have the property of self-organization—the ability to structure themselves, to create new structure, to learn, diversify, and complexify. Even complex forms of self-organization may arise from relatively simple organizing rules—or may not.

Hierarchies are brilliant systems inventions, not only because they give a system stability and resilience, but also because they reduce the amount of information that any part of the system has to keep track of.

Physical structure is crucial in a system, but is rarely a leverage point, because changing it is rarely quick or simple. The leverage point is in proper design in the first place.

DONNA: Why do traditional organizing solutions and tools not work for them?

You could tell a lot about the soul of an organization by the reading material in its waiting area.