A Guide to Controlling Your Corporation's Future - Hardcover

Ackoff, Russell L.; Finnel, Elsa Vergara; Gharajedaghi, Jamshid

9780471882138: A Guide to Controlling Your Corporation's Future

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471882135 ISBN 13: 9780471882138

Publisher: Wiley, 1984

Praise for Russell Ackoff’s previous book: Creating the Corporate Future &146;Russell Ackoff is a compelling and thoughtful writer...His ability to think in historical terms about the development of work and work organizations and to put in perspective the short-term dilemmas today’s manager must face puts him in a class of explainer populated by the likes of Harry Levinson and Lewis Thomas.... Creating the Corporate Future [is] compelling, challenging and perhaps even a little disturbing." —Training Magazine "Ackoff is best described as a pragmatic philosopher. His latest book on corporate planning is full of practical advice and examples. Yet it takes an extraordinarily broad view of the planning process and sets it in the context of a whole changing concept of the world, which is moving from preoccupation with discrete elements to new methodologies for dealing with interdependent systems." —Choice "What he calls ‘formulating the mess’ involves describing the present business situation, including present obstructions to corporate development, and projecting future performance. He discusses how to formulate goals, objectives and ideals, and offers advice for identifying and acquiring the necessary resources." —Harvard Business Review "...Stimulating thought for the senior executive who is considering—or should be considering—the future of his or her organization." —Industry Week

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From the Publisher:

This guide provides managers with the information necessary to control the future of their companies by increasing their ability to control change and its effects, or to respond rapidly and effectively to changes they cannot control.

From the Inside Flap:

Are corporate managers charting their companies’ futures using inherently flawed planning methods? According to Russell Ackoff, many are doing just that. In his groundbreaking work, Creating the Corporate Future, Ackoff addressed the growing criticisms of American management techniques at home and abroad and first introduced his revolutionary systems approach to policy making—interactive planning. Generally acknowledged as a breakthrough in corporate planning, interactive planning increases managers’ ability to control change and its effects, while at the same time enabling them to respond rapidly to changes they cannot control. Now this original and incisive thinker and two of his colleagues have taken the essential ideas of interactive planning, added fresh insights gained while helping corporate clients apply it to their own planning, and put them into this practical "how-to-plan" guide. Here is a step-by-step blueprint for translating the innovative concepts behind interactive planning into workable, implementable strategies and techniques for corporate development as well as corporate growth. While short enough to be read in a single sitting, this is a book packed with ideas you will refer to again and again throughout the planning process. Its pages are filled with realistic guidance for actually using interactive planning in your organization. With art, elegance, and insight the authors tackle such issues as:

How do you identify the problems or opportunities faced by your organization? How do they interact, and what obstructs or constrains your doing something about them?
What are the goals, objectives, and ideals of the organization you are planning for?
How do you determine what should be done to narrow the gap between the actual and "idealized" redesign?
How do you determine the resources required, and how should they be acquired or generated?
How do you implement and control these planning decisions to insure you get the desired effects on performance?

As Anthony Catanese, writing in the APA Journal, noted, "Russell Ackoff has probably influenced the thinking of more managers than any other living person." His writings—from A Concept of Corporate Planning (1970), Redesigning the Future (1974), and The Art of Problem Solving (1978), to Creating the Corporate Future (1981)—form the cornerstone of much of the theory and methods for systematic analysis of problems in management planning. Now he has continued this rich tradition with colleagues Elsa Vergara Finnel and Jamshid Gharajedaghi in this practical and important work—A Guide to Controlling Your Corporation’s Future.

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