Ackoff Center Weblog

Systems Thinking and Design Thinking

Fred Collopy, co-editor of "Managing as Designing" (Stanford Business Books, 2004), has posted an essay on Design and Systems Thinking called "Why the failure of systems thinking should  inform the future of design thinking" on Fast Company magazine's web site... 

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/fred-collopy/manage-designing-0

This - combined with two videos from last week's Business as an Agent of World Benefit conference at Case Western University .

The videos show (a) Peter Senge and Russ speaking about Systems Thinking and (b) Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the Univ. of Toronto doing the same... at this leading edge corporate social responsibility conference which had "Management as a Design Activity" as one of its themes.

The video of Peter Senge and Russ Ackoff is here...

http://bawbglobalforum.ning.com/video/6409-systems-thinking-russ

The video of Roger Martin is here...

http://bawbglobalforum.ning.com/video/6409-design-and-management

Case Western's Dr. David Cooperrider's introductory remarks last about 3 minutes.  Roger Martin then speaks for about 25 minutes.  He also acknowledges Russ Ackoff before talking about how design thinking should be incorporated into business education.

Stefan Stern's top 20th-century management theorists

From Financial Times FT.com
By Stefan Stern
Published: November 22 2008 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2008 02:00

Drucker(1909-2005): the original and best. He said most of it, really, over seven productive decades. He also said people only called him a guru because they weren't sure how to spell "charlatan".

Russ Ackoff (born 1919): former Wharton professor who rejects much business school orthodoxy with his advocacy of "systems thinking". Worries that managers waste too much time "trying to do the wrong thing righter".

To read the rest of the article, please click on:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/79bdf2a6-b838-11dd-ac6d-0000779fd18c.html

Russell Ackoff and Mission Statements

On the Mark Frisse's Policy Blog Mark Frisse, wrote the following post on mission statements: "Participating in the AHIC 2.0 discussions, I am repeatedly reminded of an influential talk and paper delivered by Russ Ackoff several years ago. His advice should be heeded when one is talking of ambitious, sincere, and inclusive 'public private partnerships.'

I have located a copy of this paper attributed to him on Charles Warner's Web Site. It seems to be the paper I read long ago. I reprint in full. Emphases in bold or italics are mine."

Continue reading this content at the Mark Frisse's Policy Blog.

Blind Spot Creativity

On Creativity Central blog, there is an interesting post .  Here's an excerpt from that blog:

Like an earthquake, every eureka moment has a series of aftershocks.  One of the most fascinating of these after sights is discovering your blind spots.  Typically, you'll hear lines like "The answer was right in front of me and I couldn't see it."  "I was solving the wrong problem."  "I never challenged the conventional thinking."

Isn't fallibility great?

Years ago, Russell Ackoff, a teacher at the Wharton School wrote a great article called "Infallibility."  I am paraphrasing some of the highlights because it sheds some more light on our blind spots.  In an experiment conducted by Alex Bavelas at MIT, subjects were taken into a room where slides were projected.  The slides were produced by waving a flashlight in dark room over unexposed film.

The subjects sat at desks in front of two buttons.  They were told to press one of the buttons after each slide. Here's the twist.  If they pressed the "right" one they would be paid, if they pressed the wrong one, they would get nothing. 

There was nothing said about what parameters determined the "right" choice. After a few slides, most subjects began to formulate theories to explain the rewards they received and soon they were quite sure that their theory was correct.

When the experiment was completed the subjects were asked to reveal their theories.  Then Bavelas told them that they were rewarded at random. There was absolutely no relationship between the buttons pushed and the rewards.   Most of the subjects were surprised, but insisted that they theories were correct.  They would not abandon their theories.

The blog post continues with more details on the blind spot creativity, and additional footnotes.  Continue reading this content at  Blind Spot Creativity.

Knowledge versus Information

On the Extreme Productivity by Design blog, Skip Walter wrote the following post on Ackoff's hierarchy from data to wisdom perspective.  Here's an excerpt from that blog:

As I was wandering into a client today, Greg asked one of those questions that lead to a teachable moment: "So Skip, it's clear from our working sessions that you think that knowledge and information are two different things. I've always thought of them as interchangeable. What is the difference?"

What a great question. It took me a long time and a lot of work by one of my mentors, Russ Ackoff, to help me see that these two concepts are very different. My simple definition of information versus knowledge is that information is structured data and knowledge is information in action. However, to put the question in a larger context, I then introduced Ackoff's hierarchy which I've come to call WUKID - Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Information and Data.

The blog post continues with more details on the knowledge management, and additional footnotes.  Continue reading this content at the Extreme Productivity by Design.

Value-creating Systems and Business Models: Systems Thinking Inside

On the Coevolving Innovation blog, David Ing wrote the following post on business models from a systems thinking perspective.  Here's an excerpt from that blog:

On my quest for management research based on systems theory, I’ve generally been disappointed since the systems foundations are rarely apparent from a superficial reading. Typically, when I read management research, I get a queasy feeling inside, because a lot of the content written is anti-systemic.

In contrast, when I read Johan Wallin’s 2006 book, Business Orchestration: Strategic Leadership in the Era of Digital Convergence, I felt strangely comfortable. I attribute this to the lineage from which Wallin has come, so that there is “systems thinking inside”. Wallin completed his dissertation in 2000 in association with Rafael Ramirez. Ramirez is a graduate of the Social Systems Science (S3) program¹ at the University of Pennsylvania, and now a professor at Oxford. In addition, Wallin worked closely with Richard Normann, immersing him in the Value Constellation model. I suspect that the average reader would be oblivious to the fine distinctions that systems theory makes. For management researchers, however, such foundations enable a strong scientific foundation, rather than simplified metaphors that break down under scrutiny.

This book is not targeted at academics, and includes many examples (e.g. Nokia, IBM, Toyota) that make the content easily digestable. For my research interests, however, I’m intrigued that Wallin has provided very specific definitions … with which I’m comfortable. I’m not necessarily a believer in objective definitions for business jargon, but they’re sometimes necessary to move forward. Thus, I’ll highlight some common business terms that everyone uses … and few define well.

The blog post continues with more details on the writings of Johan Wallin and Rafael Ramirez, and additional footnotes.  Continue reading this content at the Coevolving Innovations blog.

Application of Systems Thinking

Deep Ocean Search Planning: A Case Study Of Problem Solving
Johan Strümpfer

Introduction
The Accident
In late 1987 a Boeing 747 of South African Airways crashed into the Indian Ocean after an on board fire. The crash location was 250 km north west of Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar. Despite modern technology the location of the wreckage was as uncertain as the location of the Titanic. A massive search and recovery operation was immediately launched. This effort covered various search phases, namely a surface search and recovery, an underwater sound beacon search, an underwater sonar search, and an underwater photographic survey and recovery. All searches faced unique technical challenges, of providing accurate navigation aids and the sheer depth of the ocean. Ocean depth was in places over 5 km deep and very mountainous. This depth was significantly deeper than that of the Titanic search, the deepest deep ocean search up to that time.
This situation resulted in the in the mobilization of resources and personnel from more than a dozen nationalities. There eventually were six basic sources of information on where to conduct the search. Some of the nationality groups favored one or more of these information sources over others, resulting in conflicting and widely dispersed opinions on where the search should be conducted. The stakes were raised by the perception that those groups whose information sources were seen to prevail, would be more likely to obtain the lucrative search and recovery contract.
To read this web post, click on: Deep Ocean Search Planning: A Case Study Of Problem Solving

Engaging with complexity

Experiencing Complexity as Mess or Difficulty!

The ideas of mess and difficulty are examined in the context of complexity. Determination is made on how these ideas are connected, how significant the connections are and what the differences illuminate. This work draws on the ideas of three writers: Schön, whose central theme is practice (e.g. Schön, 1983; 1987); Ackoff, who explores the characteristics of mess; and Rosenhead, who shows how different approaches to practice may be contrasted in terms that illuminate the distinction between difficulty and mess.

To read this blog post, click on: Engaging with complexity

Systems Thinking -- Mental Model Musings

This web site has seen many changes over the years though if there is one thread of continuity which runs through the content it has much to do with the concept of systems.

You can access this blog post @:    Mental Model Musings

Schools need to be able to learn and adapt

Russ Ackoff is one of the most convincing and articulate critics of the major defficiencies of our education system. He’s considered the dean of systems thinking. At the National Summit on School Design he gave the keynote speech. He asked how many in the audience had taught a course. Then he asked, “Who learned the most in the class that you taught?” The audience murmured and Ackoff said,

You see, everybody recognizes immediately that teachers are the ones who learn the most. School is absolutely upside down. Students ought to be teaching. The faculty ought to be learning.

This points out two major defficiencies in our school system. The first is obvious: if teaching is how you learn the most, maybe we should be teaching kids to teach. The benefits of this alone would have a huge impact on the effectiveness of schools. Ackoff then goes on to describe how this used to take place in one-room schools as a necessity, and the success story of having 7 year old kids teach arithmatic to a computer in order to learn it themselves. It’s a great keynote and you can listen to it here.

The second defficiency is about the inability of schools to change. For whatever reason, possibly because of a government monopoly, our public schools have not fundamentally changed since they were introduced in the 1850s. Unless schools are able to learn, they will not be able to become more efficient at their purpose. Unless schools are able to adapt, they will not be able to remain effective in a changing environment, which is only going to happen faster.

I’m writing a manifesto for ChangeThis based on the educational work of Russ Ackoff, John Dewey, John Taylor Gatto, Peter Senge, and Ken Robinson. Hopefully it will elucidate the problems of education and inspire new approaches that will make a difference. Here is a excerpt on the topic of adaptability:

In the Industrial Age, the education planners could depend on just increasing how many children were educated, much like the assembly line increasing the production of goods. Henry Ford effectively dissolved the problem of “how many” with the assembly line and mass production. But he failed to appreciate the implications of this success by not addressing the problem of “what kind” that comes with abundance. Because of the statement, “They can have any color as long as it is black,” Ford gave GM the opportunity to eventually dominate the market.

With compulsory assembly line schools and college graduates at an all-time high, we’ve achieved abundance from a high-throughput education system. The problem has since been “what kind” of education, but with the alarming rate of new fields coming into existance, we’re starting to fall behind. It’s not just one target, it’s an increasing number of faster moving targets. We simply have no idea what’s going to be needed, and we must redesign the system to address this.

You can access this blog post @: http://educamp.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/schools-need-to-be-able-to-learn-and-adapt/