羅素·艾可夫

出自 MBA智库百科(https://wiki.mbalib.com/)

羅素·艾可夫（Russell L. Ackoff）

　　羅素·艾可夫(Russell L. Ackoff)1919年出生於費城。他進入賓州大學專修建築，本科畢業後，他的興趣轉向科學哲學，獲哲學博士學位。對於這種轉變，他自己的解釋是對人本系統的興趣超越了對建築物的興趣”，正是這種興趣導致了艾可夫日後對營運學的研究。

　　在1964年回到母校賓州大學之前，艾可夫執教於俄亥俄州克裡夫蘭市的Case Institute of Technology。儘管現已退休，但他依然是沃頓管理學院的榮譽教授，此外還承接大量的咨詢工作，並兼任由他創立的互動管理學會(The Institute for Interactive Management Inc.)董事長。

　　羅素·艾可夫興趣廣泛，從人類行為到城鎮規劃，無不涉獵。他對系統研究的興趣由來已久，在解析公司的成敗因緣方面有獨到之處，這就是他與人合著《運籌學》(Operations Research，1957)的起因。自二戰期間起運籌學及其研究已成為人們關註的對象，然而這本著作的問世將營運學引入了商業領域，尤其是在工業製造方面。任何一種系統，無論有多麼錯綜複雜，千頭萬緒，總是基於對輸入數據的組織和運用，期望達到理想的結果。而越是複雜的系統，就會有更多的輸入和可能的變數。

　　艾可夫不僅寫出了一部又一部的著作，他還為管理思想家們開闢了一塊論爭的新天地，也因此贏得了系統理論之泰斗的美譽。母校賓州大學的工程學院更是以他的名義創立了一個名為高級系統管理中心(A-CASA)的智囊團。隨著電腦價格的不斷下降和性能的不斷提高，系統管理又有了突破性的進展，由於電腦能有效地對系統進行定點和跟蹤，規模再小的企業也能從中受益匪淺。在艾可夫看來，系統研究絕非以量取勝，它能更好地測定企業及員工是如何運作的。

　　艾可夫認為，營運研究遠遠沒有被充分利用，它的收效甚微是因為人們在運用它的時候帶著片面的理解，因此艾可夫的著作和演講中時時流露出特有的尖酸刻薄的機智。用他自己的話來說，營運研究導致了“企業便秘”，它沒能跑到企業的“腦袋”里，而是被擠到“腸子”里去了，再沒地兒可擠就被排泄出去了。說到管理，艾可夫口無遮攔，絲毫不會顧忌政治導向正確與否。

　　確實，艾可夫總是樂於挑戰傳統，在沃頓任教時，他的課程無事先安排，不上課，免考試，進來容易出去難：想要通過他的課，學生得提交一份學業規劃，內容翔實之外還得有清楚的過程。面對非議，他如此反擊：“從長遠來說，再沒有比沒有照章行事而成功更為糟糕的了，只要你跟在規則後面亦步亦趨，那你永遠可以從頭來過。”在企業管理方面，艾可夫很擔心互聯網會造成無用甚至謬誤信息的泛濫成災。

　　最近以來，艾可夫把註意力投向了社會的其他方面，比如教育方面，他倡議大學應該減少教學工作，因為教師的灌輸會妨礙學生的認知。在《交響樂組織》(Re-Creating the Corporation，1999，這是臺灣譯本的書名)一書中，他對企業年限的縮減做出評論，他主張企業應該忽略各部門的分管職能，註重各部門的協調運籌，加入到企業整體這支交響樂中來。企業必須有效地進行規劃和設計，同時在企業內部真正達到民主化。

　　企業必須懂得活學活用並能不斷地自我調節，適者生存是亘古不變的道理。在《社會再設計》(Redesigning Society，2003)一書中，艾可夫試圖用營運研究的方法來解決美國的社會問題，他堅稱：“我們社會的改革有賴於創意和創新……”

　　艾可夫的新近作品還包括《擊敗系統：憑藉創造力來取勝官僚主義》(Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies， 2005)，書中收集了一系列如何招架毀謗及干涉行為的奇聞軼事。艾可夫最具生命力和獨特風格的作品收集在《艾可夫精選集》(Ackoff’s Best，1998)中。

　　如果說泰羅和法約爾開創了“機器時代”的企業管理理論，那麼，巴納德開創了“生物系統時代”的管理理論，而阿科夫則開創了“社會系統時代”的管理理論。

　　在“機器時代”，“人”被認為是企業這部機器中的一個零件，可以隨時更換，不會影響整個企業的運行。

　　在“生物系統時代”，“人”被視為企業這個有機體的一個組分，儘管與其它組分有著複雜的有機關聯，隨意“更換”對整個企業的運行會有影響，但不接受“人”作為一個“個體”在企業中有著自己的（私人）目的。

　　在“社會系統時代”，“人”被視為企業的一個“利益相關者”，承認其是一個具有自己目標的獨立系統，為企業是為了實現自己的目標，而不是為了實現企業的目標。企業應該為“人”實現其目標而提供服務。

　　在這種理念下，企業的發展是“相關利益者”的協調發展，企業發展的戰略目標制定必須考慮“相關利益者”的利益。

　　作為一個系統科學家，阿科夫進一步提出，企業管理必須是全局的協調化管理並對局部優化的方法提出了批評。阿科夫指出，美國許多大的管理咨詢公司推行的一些管理的局部優化性的“靈丹妙藥”（例如：標桿管理、流程再造等）會對企業整體造成傷害，他舉例說，將一個高性能的羅伊斯·羅爾斯發動機裝到一輛“現代”汽車上，會毀掉整個汽車。（註明：阿科夫對“現代”汽車的比喻是由於80年代美國人對南韓汽車質量的成見，此比喻有損“現代汽車”的形象，特此聲明。）

　　阿科夫指出：美國從二次大戰開始發生了產業革命，而與產業革命聯繫在一起的“機器時代”開始讓位於“系統時代”。而“系統時代”的特征是不斷加速變化、相互依存和複雜的多目標系統。例如，企業就是這樣的一個多目標的“社會系統”，而不是以前那種服務於企業主或者股東的單一目的“生物系統”或者“機械繫統”。企業是服務於三個層次目的的社會系統：企業自身的目的、企業員工的目的、企業環境（顧客、社會和政府等）的目的。

　　阿科夫的思想中最大的貢獻就是：企業有義務服務於其員工，而不是以前那樣員工服務於企業的單方向的模式。

　　在阿科夫的哲學思想中，管理者作為企業的戰略制定者和領導人，必須要引領企業向正確的方向前進，要創造企業的未來，而不要被動地接受企業的未來。

　　在2003年的一次採訪中，阿科夫指出：“經理人們被錯誤的信息所誤導、被不正確地教導以致他們不理解他們身處環境正在發生的根本性變化。他們是有缺陷的教育系統（指商學院）的產物，造成的後果是大量的企業成為“短命企業”，例如，25年前《財富》雜誌評出的世界500強有一半已經不存在了，而美國所有企業的平均壽命也只有14.5年，每年新開業的23家企業中就有一家在1年內關閉。我們錯誤地用成功的企業來描繪美國的經濟，而忽略了失敗的一面。”

　　阿科夫強調了思維方式的變化，他喜歡運用愛因斯坦的名言：“如果思維方式沒有變化就不能解決我們由現在的思維方式所帶來的問題。”阿科夫認為經理人都認同這個觀念，但當問及經理人現在的思維方式是什麼樣的思維方式時，他們往往是一頭霧水。也正是這個原因，他們不能理解他們的失敗。

　　當被問及現代經理人應該具備怎樣的思維方式時，阿科夫指出：“學會綜合性（synthetic)的思維方式來理解複雜系統，而不是解析式思維方式。綜合性思維要求人們在思考一個系統時認識到儘管系統是由具有某種特質和行為特質的組分組成，但系統整體卻具有任何組分所沒有的特性。分析可以揭示系統是如何工作的，而綜合性思維確解釋了系統為什麼要這樣工作；解析思維和綜合思維的整合就是系統思維。”

　　這樣，阿科夫強調瞭解析思維方式的“知道”(konwing)功效和綜合思維方式的“理解”(understanding)功效。他進一步解釋說：“知識是通過描述傳遞的，回答了“如何”(how to)的問題；而理解是通過解釋傳遞的；回答了“為什麼”(why)的問題。這是兩者最基本的區別。很多企業的經理人不理解這種區別的重要性，他們追求掌握有關他們所在企業和環境的知識而不努力去理解這些複雜系統。他們試圖將事情做好，而不去考慮所做的事情是否是正確的事情。如果他們所做的事在方向上是不正確的，那麼，他們越做得好，犯的錯誤也就越大。”

　　Russell L. Ackoff was born in 1919 in Philadelphia to Jack and Fannie (Weitz) Ackoff.^[1] He received his bachelor degree in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1941. He stayed at this university for one year as assistant instructor in philosophy. From 1942 to 1946 he joined the U.S. Army. He returned to study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his doctorate in philosophy of science in 1947 as C. West Churchman’s first doctoral student.^[2] He also received a doctorate of science from the University of Lancaster in 1967.

　　From 1947 to 1951 Ackoff was assistant professor in philosophy and mathematics at the Wayne State University. He was associate professor and professor operations research at Case Institute of Technology from 1951 to 1964. 1961 and 1962 he was also visiting professor of operational research at the University of Birmingham. From 1964 to 1986 he was professor of systems sciences and professor of management science at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

　　In the 1970s and 1980s the Social Systems Sciences Program at the Wharton School was noted for combining theory and practice, escaping disciplinary bounds, and driving students toward independent thought and action. The learning environment was fostered by distinguished standing and visiting faculty such as Eric Trist, C. West Churchman, Hasan Ozbekhan, Thomas A. Cowan, and Fred Emery.

　　Since 1979 Ackoff and John Pourdehnad worked as consultants in a broad range of industries including aerospace, chemicals, computer equipment, data services and software, electronics, energy, food and beverages, healthcare, hospitality, industrial equipment, automotive, insurance, metals, mining, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, utilities, and transportation.

　　Since 1986 Ackoff is professor emeritus of the Wharton School, and chairman of Interact, the Institute for Interactive Management. From 1989 to 1995 he was visiting professor of marketing at Washington University in St. Louis.

　　Ackoff was president of Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) in 1956–1957, and he was president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) in 1987.

　　Ackoff was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science at the University of Lancaster, UK in 1967. He got a Silver Medal from the Operational Research Society in 1971. Other honors came from the Washington University in St. Louis in 1993, the University of New Haven in 1997, the Pontificia Universidad Catholica Del Peru, Lima in 1999 and the University of Lincolnshire & Humberside, UK in 1999. That year from the UK Systems Society he got an Award for outstanding achievement in Systems Thinking and Practice.

　　Ackoff married Alexandra Makar on July 17, 1949.^[1] This union produced three children: Alan W., Karen B., and Karla S.^[1]After the death of Alexandra in February, 1987, Ackoff married Helen Wald on December 20, 1987.^[1]

　　Throughout the years Ackoff's work in research, consulting and education has involved more than 250 corporations and 50 governmental agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

　　Operations research

　　Russell Ackoff has had a distinguished career in Operations Research both as an academic and as a practitioner. His book Introduction to Operations Research, co-authored with C. West Churchman and Leonard Arnoff from 1957 appeared as a pioneering text that helped define the field. His influence on the early development of the discipline in the USA and in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s is hard to over-estimate.^[2] However, by the 1970s he had become trenchant in his criticisms of technique-dominated Operations Research, and powerfully advocated more participative approaches. These criticisms have had limited resonance within the USA, but were picked up in Britain, where they helped to stimulate the growth of problem structuring methods, such as Soft systems methodology from Peter Checkland.

　　The nature of science

　　Ackoff believed that the need to synthesize findings in the many disciplines of science arises because these disciplines have been developed with relatively unrelated conceptual systems. Scientific development has resulted in the grouping of phenomena into smaller and smaller classes, and in the creation of disciplines specializing in each. As disciplines multiply, each increases in depth and decreases in breadth. Collectively, however, they extend the breadth of scientific knowledge.

　　Nature does not come to us in disciplinary form. Phenomena are not physical, chemical, biological, and so on. The disciplines are the ways we study phenomena; they emerge from points of view, not from what is viewed. Hence the disciplinary nature of science is a filing system of knowledge. Its organization is not to be confused with the organization of nature itself.

　　Purposeful systems

　　In 1972 Ackoff wrote a book with Frederick Edmund Emery about purposeful systems,^[3] which focused on the question how systems thinking relates to human behaviour. Individual systems are purposive, they said, knowledge and understanding of their aims can only be gained by taking into account the mechanisms of social, cultural, and psychological systems.^[2]

　　They characterize human systems as purposeful systems whose members are also purposeful individuals who intentionally and collectively formulate objectives and are parts of larger purposeful systems:

• A purposeful system or individual is ideal-seeking if it chooses another objective that more closely approximates its ideal.
• An ideal-seeking system or individual is necessarily one that is purposeful, but not all purposeful entities seek ideals.
• The capability of seeking ideals may well be a characteristic that distinguishes man from anything he can make, including computers.

　　The fact that these systems were experiencing profound change could be attributed to the end of the "Machine Age" and the onset of the "Systems Age". The Machine Age, bequeathed by the Industrial Revolution, was underpinned by two concepts of reductionism and mechanism whereby "all phenomena were believed to be explained by using only one ultimately simple relationship, cause-effect", which in the Systems Age are replaced by expansionism and teleology with producer-product replacing cause-effect. "Expansionism is a doctrine maintaining that all objects and events, and all experiences of them, are parts of larger wholes." According to Ackoff, the beginning of the end of the Machine Age and the beginning of the Systems Age could be dated to the 1940s, a decade when philosophers, mathematicians, and biologists, building on developments in the interwar period, defined a new intellectual framework.^[2]

　　f-Laws

　　In 2006, Ackoff worked with Herbert J. Addison and Sally Bibb. They developed the term f-Law to describe each in a collection of subversive epigrams, co-authored with Herbert J. Addison. The f-Laws expose the common flaws in both the practice of leadership and in the established beliefs that surround it. According to Ackoff f-Laws are truths about organizations that we might wish to deny or ignore - simple and more reliable guides to managers' everyday behaviour than the complex truths proposed by scientists, economists, sociologists, politicians and philosophers.

Ackoff has authored or co-authored 31 books and published over 150 articles in a variety of journals. Books:

• 1946, Psychologistics, with C. West Churchman.
• 1947, Measurement of Consumer Interest, with C. W. Churchman and M. Wax (ed.).
• 1950, Methods of Inquiry: an introduction to philosophy and scientific method, with C. W. Churchman. Educational Publishers: St. Louis.
• 1953, The Design of Social Research.
• 1957, Introduction to Operations Research, with C. W. Churchman and E. L. Arnoff. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1961, Progress in Operations Research, I. Wiley: New York.
• 1962, Scientific Method: optimizing applied research decisions, Wiley: New York.
• 1963, A Manager's Guide to Operations Research, with P. Rivett. Wiley: New York.
• 1968, Fundamentals of Operations Research, with M. Sasieni. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1970, A Concept of Corporate Planning. Wiley-Interscience: New York.
• 1972, On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events, with Frederick Edmund Emery, Aldine-Atherton: Chicago.
• 1974, Redesigning the Future: A Systems Approach to Societal Problems. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1974, Systems and Management Annual, (ed.).
• 1976, The SCATT Report, with T. A. Cowan, Peter Davis (Ed.).
• 1976, Some Observations and Reflections on Mexican Development.
• 1978, The Art of Problem Solving: accompanied by Ackoff's Fables. John Wiley & Sons: New York. Illustrations by Karen B. Ackoff.
• 1981, Creating the Corporate Future: plan or be planned for. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1984, A Guide to Controlling Your Corporation's Future, with E.V. Finnel and J. Gharajedaghi.
• 1984, Revitalizing Western Economies, with P. Broholm and R. Snow.
• 1986, Management in Small Doses. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1991, Ackoff's Fables: Irreverent Reflections on Business and Bureaucracy. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1994, The Democratic Corporation: a radical prescription for recreating corporate America and rediscovering success. Oxford Univ. Press: New York.
• 1998, Exploring Personality: an intellectual odyssey. CQM: Cambridge, MA.
• 1999, Ackoff's Best: his classic writings on management. John Wiley & Sons: New York.
• 1999, Re-Creating the Corporation: a design of organizations for the 21st century. Oxford Univ. Press: New York.
• 2000, "A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers", with W. Edwards Deming^[4]
• 2003, Redesigning Society, with Sheldon Rovin. Stanford Univ. Press: Stanford, Calif.
• 2006, A Little Book of f-Laws, with Herbert J. Addison and Sally Bibb.
• 2007, Management f-Laws, with Herbert J. Addison and Sally Bibb.
• 2008, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (pdf) with Daniel Greenberg.

• 1967. "Management Misinformation Systems". In: Management Science, 14(4), 1967, 147-156.
• 1968, "General Systems Theory and Systems Research Contrasting Conceptions of Systems Science." in: Views on a General Systems Theory: Proceedings from the Second System Symposium, Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (Ed.).
• 1971, Towards A System of Systems Concepts.
• 1973, "Science in the Systems Age: Beyond IE, OR, and MS", Operations Research 21(3), pp. 661-671. Reprinted as "Science in the Systems Age" in Wharton Quarterly 1973. 7 (2); pp. 8-13.
• 1974, "The Social Responsibility of Operational Research" Operational Research Quarterly 25 (3), pp. 361-371.
• 1975, "Advertising Research at Anheuser-Busch, Inc. (1963-68)", with James R. Emshoff, Sloan Management Review, 16 (2), pp. 1-15.
• 1975, "A Reply to the Comments of Yvan Allaire", with James R. Emshoff, Sloan Management Review, 16 (3), pp. 95-98.
• 1977, "The Corporate Rain Dance", The Wharton Magazine, Winter, pp. 36-41.
• 1996, On Learning and Systems That Facilitate it, in: Center for Quality of Management Journal Vol. 5, No.2.
• 1998, A Systemic View of Transformational Leadership
• 2003, Terrorism: A Systemic View, with Johan P. Strumpfer, in: Systems Research and Behavioral Science 20, pp. 287-294.
• 2004, Transforming The Systems Movement
• 2006, A major mistake that managers make

Some Ackoff center blogs:

• 2006, Thinking about the future
• 2006, Why few organizations adopt systems thinking in: Systems Research and Behavioral Science. 23, pp. 705-708.

Podcast:

• 2005, Doing the Wrong Thing Right by Russell Ackoff, October 2005.