Russ Ackoff's Books

In 1982 a business colleague called and told me to immediately purchase Russ Ackoff's Creating the Corporate Future.  The colleagure exclaimed that Russ was far and away the best professor at their summer executive education program at Penn State.  This book started an intense mentoring with Russ over the next three years as I learned systems thinking from the Master.

We found we had a shared interest in a For Profit University so we spent a delightful year collaborating on an idealized design for how Digital Equipment could think differently about our Educational Services business.

In the process, Russ introduced me to Jim Clark who had recently retired as CEO of Clark Equipment.  Jim was the consumate operational execuitve to Russ's role as the virtuoso consultant.  Jim made Russ's theories come to life as he described his experiences in using Russ at General Motors and then at Clark Equipment.  As a side benefit, the experience of staying at Jim's family retreat in the rolling hills of Ohio brought to reality Chris Alexander's alive living spaces that he describes in Timeless Way of Building.

The core framework Russ developed is the Idealized Design Methodology.  His story of how he came across the method at Bell Labs in the early 1950s is the starting point for his consulting and teaching engagements.  The Bell Labs story can be found in the introduction of his recent book Idealized Design [add a link to Amazon book].  However, treat yourself to a video experience of Russ telling the story directly.

While I always enjoyed Russ's wry sense of humor, his special gift was always asking a much better, deeper questions whenever you asked him a question.  My value as a designer, consultant, entrepreneur and teacher is to strive to measure up to Russ's mentoring by synthesizing client aspirations and asking them better questions.