Ackoff's F'Laws: The Cake

Russ Ackoff's witty and subversive "F/laws of Management" have become well known around the world and are regularly recommended as an introduction to his thinking. They cover areas like leadership, teams, hierarchy, creativity and innovation, motivation and management. (Critics regularly point out that most of the thinking behind his F/laws is developed in more detail in his earlier books. They're right. In publishing the F/laws, Russ Ackoff was unashamedly trying to reach a wider audience - 'regular managers' in 'regular businesses' who would never otherwise read about Systems Thinking.) Each of the 122 F/laws challenges a received wisdom about management and will get you thinking about the realities of work and organisations: what really motivates managers, why companies are run the way they are, what PR is really trying to do ... Each F/law comes with a page (or so) of Russ Ackoff's own explanation - often wandering into delightfully unexpected areas. This is the only full collection of all Ackoff's F/laws - which were first published in two separate books (Management f-Laws and Systems Thinking for Curious Managers.) This hardback collection reverts to Ackoff's original typescript without any commentary or other introduction and features his original cartoons.

About the Author :
The late Russell L. Ackoff was the Anheuser-Busch Emeritus Professor of Management Science at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He wrote numerous books on Systems Management, the most recent of which were Beating the System, co-authored with Sheldon Rovin, Re-Designing the Corporation, Ackoff's Best and Idealized Design, co-authored with Jason Magidson and Herbert J. Addison. A founding member of the Institute of Management Sciences, his work in consulting and education involved more than 350 corporations and 75 government agencies in the United States and beyond. Management grandee, he was ranked 26 in a recent list of the world's most influential business thinkers.

Review :
"With a deep understanding of both theory and practice, Barabba draws on a broad range of management concepts, ideas and experiences to advocate rules of thumb and decision models and processes to help managers cope with the dynamic complexity of the 21st Century. Barabba's insights and conclusions are strongly influenced by systems thinking and explicitly inspired by the works of Ackoff, Churchman, Drucker and the other great management thinkers of our time." Ray Stata, Co-founder and Chairman, Analog Devices "The Decision Loom makes a profound point about leadership - that those at the helm require more than the bare facts to make effective decisions. Yes, leaders need numbers and charts, but they need soul and imagination in equal measure to put data to good use. This is all too often forgotten in the debate about decision-making; Vince does us a great service by reminding us." Osvald Bjelland, Chairman Xynteo