A full collection of more than 80 of Russell Ackoff's management f-laws: the uncomfortable truths about how organizations really work, what's wrong with the way we design and manage businesses, what makes managers tick... and how we can make things work better. Russell Ackoff is one of the world's top business brains. Herbert Addison has worked for years in business book publishing. Sally Bibb is a pioneer of organizational change. Who better to zero in on organizations, take them apart and then suggest ways of putting them back together - but better?

Management F-Laws: How Organizations Really Work

Business & Money

Ackoff, Russell L.

Addison, Herbert J.

Bibb, Sally

Management & Leadership

Triarchy Press Ltd

As the former CEO of Shell Chemicals UK and Celltech, Gerard Fairtlough speaks about business with enormous authority and experience. In this ground-breaking book he draws on that experience to explain why hierarchy is not the only way to organize a business. He explains the alternatives to hierarchy (which he calls heterarchy and responsible autonomy) and shows how they can work in practice. This extensively revised and updated edition is vital reading for anyone who wants organizations to work better. Reviews of the First Edition: "Imagine a company without bosses. Impossible? I would be inclined to agree, but Gerard Fairtlough. begs to differ and, the more I listen to his arguments, the more I believe he is on to something." Richard Donkin, writing in the Financial Times "Why is working in large organizations often so unrewarding? Why does it seem so purposeless, apart from the pay packet? Work takes up most of our waking lives for the best part of our lives, yet in many cases, work does not really work. What a waste! .Gerard Fairtlough addresses this big dilemma." Peter Day, BBC Radio 4 ".an elegant and concise exploration of contemporary theory and practice in the governance or organizations. It convincingly challenges the assumption that hierarchy is the inevitable default. Clearly written by a scientist and former CEO, it is superior to (and far more readable than) most management books". Walter Truett Anderson, World Academy of Art and Science ".a thoughtful book that every management consultant should read to assist and inform him or her when interacting with clients and assessing the prevailing culture climate in that organization". Alan Beckley, Managing Editor, Professional Consultancy

The Three Ways of Getting Things Done

Fairtlough, Gerard

What links the world's most dynamic, successful companies - the companies that are transforming the way we live our lives? Rootling around in the Googlemould, Dr Andrew Jones has unearthed some remarkable connections and consistencies. In The Innovation Acid Test, he lays out for us the defining practices and procedures of a select few of these companies - Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Google, Innocent Drinks, Shanghai Tang and others. He pieces them together to reveal a pattern of distinctive ways in which they differentiate themselves from traditionalist firms: from managing their businesses and running their workplaces to talking to their customers and recruiting, motivating and rewarding their employees. From this pattern, he constructs an intriguing model, built on the principles of architecture, design and anthropology. Finally, he sets out the ground rules for implementing that model and creating organizations that are equipped not merely to 'manage the known' but also to 'build the unknown'. The result is a book that will catch the imagination of any reader interested in work and organizations. Today, Generation Y employees and ever-more-demanding customers are setting the agenda for business. The Innovation Acid Test offers a clear guide for any company seeking to transform itself into the kind of human-centred enterprise that is equipped to meet these challenges.

The Innovation Acid Test: Growth Through Design and Differentiation

Jones, M.

Innovation is the word on everyone's lips. Yet, as much as they seek novelty, people and systems also have a tendency to resist change, so that even organisations with great creative capacity often find it difficult to sustain new ventures. And for many companies concerned about their future survival in a rapidly changing marketplace, innovation is a Holy Grail that cannot be found by mandate or implementation of controls.  Drawing on his many years' experience as a business leader and advisor in a highly competitive field, Fairtlough shares his insights into how best to encourage and nurture innovation within an organisation by implementing policies of trust, openness, focus and accountability. His wisdoms are informed by an examination of existing theoretical models of innovation.  Gerard Fairtlough died suddenly in 2007. No Secrets! is his final work and is presented as a dialogue with contributions from his friends and colleagues in organisational thinking, including eminent cultural anthropologist Michael Thompson and Wellford Wilms.

No Secrets! Innovation Through Openness

The free market has become the accepted model for the public sector. Politicians on all sides compete to spread the gospel. And so, in the UK and elsewhere, there's been massive investment in public sector 'improvement', 'customer choice' has been increased and new targets have been set and refined. But our experience is that things haven't changed much. This is because governments have invested in the wrong things. Belief in targets, incentives and inspection; belief in economies of scale and shared back-office services; belief in 'deliverology... these are all wrong-headed ideas and yet they have underpinned this government's attempts to reform the public sector. John Seddon here dissects the changes that have been made in a range of services, including housing benefits, social care and policing. His descriptions beggar belief, though they would be funnier if it wasn't our money that was being wasted. In place of the current mess, he advocates a Systems Thinking approach where individuals come first, waste is reduced and responsibility replaces blame. It's an approach that is proven, successful and relatively cheap - and one that governments around the world, and their advisers, need to adopt urgently. "A refreshing deconstruction of the control freakery of the current performance regime. It could do for thinking on business improvement what An Inconvenient Truth has done for climate change." Andrew Grant, Chief Executive, Aylesbury Vale District Council "This is the must-have book. It correctly identifies why the present regime is failing our citizens and customers, but more importantly it gives the reader a proven method by which to bring about real improvement in service performance and cost." Dr Carlton Brand, Director of Resources, Wiltshire County Council "This book is uncomfortable, challenging and very direct. It offers huge learning and insight... A superb read." David McQuade, Deputy Chief Executive, Flagship Housing Group "If ministers, local authority leaders and chief executives only read one book this year this is it. A true beacon of sanity in an increasingly insane regime; ministers should read this and recognise the error of their ways." Mark Radford, Director of Corporate Services, Swale District Council

Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: The Failure of the Reform Regime... and a Manifesto for a Better Way

Seddon, John

Economics

We are all changing, and our society changes with us - Why have so many people lost the will to vote? - Why have our attitudes to work changed so radically? - Why did people so suddenly stop respecting the police, the church and other authority figures? - When and why did parents start to dress and behave like their children, rather than the other way round? - Why was the radicalism of 1968 abandoned so quickly? - Why do advertisements from even 10 years ago seem so ridiculous now? This compelling insight into the lives of ordinary people is the culmination of 60 years' research into what we believe; what we fear; how we love; what we like; who we are; how we are changing the world - and what we are going to do next. Towards the Third Modernity is the most riveting kind of contemporary history. Drawing on a mass of interviews, field research, life histories, surveys and social observation conducted across Western Europe and North America, the author plots the passage of what he calls the First and Second Modernities from 1950 to the present. Reading it, pieces of the social jigsaw drop into place and trends and changes that that we have all seen in our lifetimes are spotlighted, named and explained in the most satisfactory way. In the final chapters, the author asks what the Third Modernity has in store for us. He examines the trends that are just now being detected by social observers around the world. What do they herald for the next decade? Chaos or world government? Increasing social harmony or increasing fragmentation, isolation and despair? It is a mark of the extraordinary breadth and scope of this book that the original French edition was seized upon by academics, social commentators, business leaders, historians, politicians, planners, teachers, social anthropologists and the 'ordinary people' of the title alike.

Towards the Third Modernity: How Ordinary People Are Transforming The World

Vulpian, Alan de

Marketing & Sales

Published in Europe as 'Erasing Excellence: Examining the grip of centralised power', this US edition is a cautionary tale that both emphasizes the positive effects of allowing people to find their own solutions to their own problems and illustrates the fragility of dispersed power. In Liberating the Schoolhouse, Wellford Wilms tells the story of Baldwin Park High School, California. In 2002, pupil attainment and attendance were low, teachers were demoralized and disempowered and discipline was poor. By 2006, student absenteeism and the number of disciplinary cases had fallen dramatically and test scores had achieved near triple-digit gains. This change was brought about by a new principal and her small leadership team. By taking small steps to hand teachers autonomy both in and outside of the classroom, they were able to improve performance across the whole school. When, in 2006, the district replaced the principal with someone more willing to toe the line, staff motivation slowly but surely ebbed away in the face of top-down command... Empowerment returned to inertia. The lessons learnt by examining the case of Baldwin Park High School could apply to any school or organization - not just in the USA, but anywhere in the world. Where members of staff are encouraged to take ownership of the decisions that affect them, they act with the bigger picture in mind. The results can be far-reaching. Liberating the Schoolhouse makes invaluable reading for all those involved in the mainstream education debate and for anyone with a suspicion that there must be an alternative to centralized power.

Liberating the Schoolhouse: Breaking the Grip of Centralized Power

Wilms, Welford

Education & Reference

The word `myth' has become synonymous with `untrue': in today's rational world, myths are always distrusted and frequently debunked. But myths should not be so easily dismissed. In The Mythical Organisation, Graham Galer identifies the existence of modern-day myths, including myths that have grown up around the British National Health Service, the BBC and climate change. He argues that their creation and development are driven by an underlying and often unconscious need to explain and maintain the social order. Drawing on his experience in scenario planning at Royal Dutch/Shell and in South Africa under apartheid, Galer provides insight and commentary on the importance of myth for social stability and the role myth has to play in changing public opinion and stimulating action. He demonstrates that a myth is not only a means of exploring the past but that it also provides a shared experience that allows us to examine the present and imagine the future. The Mythical Organisation is writt

The Mythical Organisation

Galer, Graham

There are five ways of organising: the hierarchical, the egalitarian, the individualistic, the fatalistic and the autonomous. Each approach is a way of disorganising the other four: without the other four, it would have nothing to organise itself against. In Organising and Disorganising, Michael Thompson gives a detailed explanation of the dynamics of these five fundamental arrangements that underlie 'Cultural Theory'. We may believe that our perspective is the right one and that any interaction with opposing views is a messy and unwelcome contradiction. So why should egalitarians engage with individualists, or hierachists with egalitarians? Using a range of examples and analogies, the author shows how the best outcomes depend upon an essential argumentative process, which encourages subversions that are constructive whilst discouraging those that are not. In this way each approach gets more of what it wants and less of what it doesn't want. Michael Thompson calls these best outcomes 'Clumsy Solutions'. The lively style of its presentation and its rigorous attention to detail makes this book suitable for a wide audience - from managers and academic theorists to those who are responsible for effective and enlightened action on challenging global issues.

Organising & Disorganising: A Dynamic and Non-Linear Theory of Institutional Emergence and its Implications

Politics & Social Sciences

Thompson, Michael

Social Sciences

If the idea of a conceptual emergency seemed original when it was introduced in the first edition of this booklet, it now appears inescapable. Brought on by the global credit crunch and the collapse or effective nationalisation of so many familiar institutions (HBOS, Lehman Brothers, Woolworths...), we face a fresh crisis of faith, as the instability of our previous perceptions of identity, morality, cultural coherence and social position is revealed. In a world where we are losing our collective bearings, we urgently need leadership inspired by fresh and insightful thinking. This little book provides a remarkable amount of both. The authors are writing under the banner of the International Futures Forum (IFF), an innovative and forward-thinking group that has inspired many communities to respond powerfully to severe social and economic challenges. Ten Things records IFF's learning over seven years on how to take more effective and responsible action in a world we do not understand and cannot control. This second edition has been expanded and updated with seven inspirational case studies from around the world, generated by IFF's work. Insightful yet playful, compact, readable and touchingly illustrated, this is a gem of a book. It will appeal to managers and organisational and political leaders but also to environmental campaigners, social psychologists and educationalists.

Ten Things to do in a Conceptual Emergency

Leicester, Graham

O'Hara, Maureen

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