ICSTM 2004 Keynote with Russell Ackoff
From SystemsWiki
This video series is from Dr. Russell L. Ackoff's Keynote Address at the International Conference on Systems Thinking and Management (ICSTM) in May 2004.
- Function of the faculty member is not to teach but to facilitate the learning of others.
- Global Transformation in a hell of a mess
- The emerging world requires a new foreign policy agenda and fresh faces to execute that agenda. The trouble is the same old experts are still running foreign policy and most of them only dimly understand the world they preside over. Indeed few people today in or out of government have the background and skills to grasp let alone direct the new agenda.
- Transformation in contrast to reformation
- Reform is to leave the system as it is and change its behavior. It's a modification of the means which it employs.
- Transformation change its objectives or its ends.
- Drucker said there's a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing.
- Reformation is about doing things right
- Transformation is about doing the right thing
- Our problem at the global level is our continuous effort to improve doing the wrong thing.
- Failure to distinguish between the objective we proclaim and ones we practice.
- Transformation isn't a change in the proclaimed objectives but a change in the ones we actually practice.
- Corporations maximize the wealth, security, and quality of life of the people who make the decisions.
- University is about maximizing the quality of work life of the faculty.
- Teaching is a price the faculty has to pay to maintain the quality of work life and it tries to minimize
- The more power a faculty member has the less teaching they do.
- Characteristic of all organizations is that their proclaimed objectives are different than their demonstrated objectives.
- To transform anything it is first essentially to understand what's really being pursued.
- Also requires a different way of thinking than currently prevails
- Without changing our current patterns of thought we will not be able to solve the problems created with our current patterns of thought. - Einstein
- Everyone seems to agree though almost nobody understands what it means.
References
- Systems Thinking
- Systems Thinkinkg with Russell Ackoff
- Systems Based Improvement with Russell Ackoff
- Beyond Continuous Improvement with Russell Ackoff
- Idealized Design
- Russell Ackoff Memories Published in 2010 by Triarchy Press
- Systems Thinking World Videos
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