How organisations really work
Russell Ackoff was a systems thinker and organisational theorist who proposed a set of principles called “Ackoff’s F-Laws” that represent his critiques of common organisational practices: the uncomfortable truths about how organisations really work, what’s wrong with the way we design and manage businesses.
The f-Laws are cleverly crafted statements, formulated from the observations and experiences of Ackoff, highlighting counterintuitive or outdated management practices. Small in length, the implications can feel limitless. I suggest spending some time with them, don’t rush, take those that resonate with you for a walk.
The f-Laws show the unique perspective from looking beyond Espoused Theories of what an individual or organisation claims to follow, to reveal their Theories-in-use: the worldviews, values, and patterns of behaviour that can be inferred from action (Argyris & Schön, 1974).
There’s an ocean of wisdom in Ackoff’s epigrams, some have dated better than others. Worryingly, many reveal the persistency of organisational challenges. Below are just a small selection that I have found useful:
Knowledge is of two types, explicit and implicit, and knowing this is implicit
You rarely improve an organisation as a whole by improving the performance of one or more of its parts
There is no point in asking consumers, who do not know what they want, to say what they want
For managers the only conditions under which experience is the best teacher are ones in which no change takes place
The level of conformity in an organisation is in inverse proportion to its creative ability
The best reason for recording what one thinks is to discover what one thinks and to organise it in transmittable form
The amount of irrationality that executives attribute to others is directly proportional to their own
The future is better dealt with using assumptions than forecasts
When managers say something is obvious, it does not mean that it is unquestionable, but rather that they are unwilling to have it questioned
The more lawyers an organisation employs, the less innovation it tolerates
Good teachers produce sceptics who ask their own questions and find their own answers; management gurus produce only unquestioning disciples
The only thing more difficult than starting something new in an organisation is stopping something old
Acceptance of a recommended solution to a problem depends more on the manager’s trust of its source than on the content of the recommendation or the competence of its source
The less managers understand their business, the more variables they require to explain it
Curiosity is the ‘open sesame’ to learning, even for managers
The more corporate executives believe in a free (unregulated) market, the more they believe in a regulated internal market
The amount of time a committee wastes is directly proportional to its size
It is generally easier to evaluate an organisation from the outside-in than from the inside-out
Development is less about how much an organisation has than how much it can do with whatever it has
Smart subordinates can make their managers look bad no matter how good they are, and make their managers look good no matter how bad they are
In an organisation that disapproves of mistakes, but identifies only errors of commission, the best strategy for anyone who seeks job security is to do nothing
The less important an issue is, the more time managers spend discussing it
No matter how large and successful an organisation is, if it fails to adapt to change, then, like a dinosaur, it will become extinct
All work and no play is a prescription for low quantity and quality of outputs
A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say ‘no’ but none to say ‘yes’
Managers who don’t know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure
The uniqueness of an organisation lies more in what it hides than what it exposes
Managers cannot learn from doing things right, only from doing things wrong
It is very difficult for those inside a box to think outside of it
Most stated, corporate objectives are platitudes — they say nothing, but hide this fact behind words
The higher their rank, the less managers perceive a need for continuing education, but the greater the need for it
The number of references and citations in a book is inversely proportional to the amount of thinking the author has done
Overheads, slides and Power Point projectors are not visual aids to managers. They transform managers into auditory aids to the visuals
Conversations in a lavatory are more productive than those in the boardroom
Most managers know less about managing people than the conductor of an orchestra does
Complex problems do not have simple solutions, only simple-minded managers and their consultants think they do
To do more of what is not working currently, is to do more of what will not work in the future
Those who successfully managed a company to maturity are unlikely to be able to manage it back to youth
Viewing things differently is not a defect: it is an advantage
It is better to dissolve a problem than solve it
Giving managers the information needed to (dis)solve a problem does not necessarily improve their performance
Best way to find out how to get from here to there is to find out how to get from there to here
The best place to begin an intellectual journey is at its end
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but invention is the father of desire
Meetings that share ignorance cannot produce knowledge
Benchmarking is a not-very-subtle form of imitation. It condemns organisations to following not leading
Consensus is practical, not necessarily principled, agreement
In a classroom, the teacher learns most
There is never a better place to initiate a change than where the one who asks where the best place is, is
Risk aversion is a core competency of most managers
The more managers believe in a democratic society the more they insist on autocratic corporations
There is no such thing as risk-free agreement
Organisations fail more often because of what they have not done and because of what they have done
Problems are not objects of experience, but mental constructs extracted from it by analysis
It is better to control the future imperfectly than to forecast it perfectly
Competition is conflict embedded in cooperation; the more conflict there is, the more cooperation there is
If you’ve found these thought provoking, worrying, witty, or controversial, I suggest buying his books to dig further. It’s my hope that by exposing uncomfortable truths, we can develop better practices that serve us well.
References
Management f-Laws: How Organizations Really Work. Ackoff, Russell L.; Addison, Herbert J.; Bibb, Sally. Triarchy Press, 2006
Systems Thinking for Curious Managers. Ackoff, Russell L.; Addison, Herbert J. Triarchy Press, 2010
Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. Argyris, C. & Schon, D, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974
