Bell Labs Designing a New Phone System Using Idealized Design
Blog: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
I remember hearing this same story when Russ Ackoff spoke at the Hunter Conference on Quality (which was named in honor of my father) in Madison, Wisconsin.
If you haven’t heard this story you are in for a treat. And if you haven’t heard Russell Ackoff before you get to enjoy a great storyteller.
“Tape” of Ackoff’s Bell Lab Lecture at the US Navy.
If you would limit yourself to paying attention to 5 thinkers to advance your understanding of managing organizations Ackoff should be one of them. Of course, many managers don’t even try to learn from 5 leading management thinkers to do their jobs better over their career. So for many people just learning from Ackoff, Deming, Scholtes etc. they would be far ahead of the path they are now for their career. Of course you are not limited to learning from 5 people so you can learn from more if you want to be a better manager and leader.
I probably remember much from maybe 5 talks from the more than 5 years I attended the Hunter Conference (and they were the best conferences I have attended – this might explain why the last conference I attended was maybe 7 years ago). This was one of them. And I realized that Ackoff was someone I could learn a great deal from and it caused me to learn a great deal from Russ Ackoff over the next decade.
Related: Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs (2006) – Corporations Are Not Led By Those Seeking to Maximize Shareholder Value, Russ Ackoff – Transformation and Redesign at the White House Communications Agency – Russell L. Ackoff: 1919 -2009 – Dr. Russell Ackoff Webcast on Systems Thinking – Designing a New Organization (2005)
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