F-Law

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f-Laws are subversive epigrams about common management practices.

Systems theorist Russell L. Ackoff and his co-author Herbert J. Addison invented the term in 2006 to describe their series of over 100 distilled observations of bad leadership and the misplaced wisdom that often surrounds management in organizations. Many of the f-Laws describe a relationship of inverse proportionality, in example: "The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things."

Ackoff and Addison's f-Laws might seem counter-intuitive. They are designed to challenge organizations' unquestioning adherence to established management habits or beliefs.

The f-Laws advocate adopting a positive, forward-looking and interactive approach to structural or systematic change within organizations, following the principles of idealized design. This is a process that "involves redesigning the organization on the assumption that it was destroyed last night... The most effective way of creating the future is by closing or reducing the gap between the current state and the idealized design".

Two collections of f-Laws entitled A Little Book of f-Laws: 13 Common Sins of Management and Management f-Laws: How Organizations Really Work have been published.

While, if read in isolation, each f-Law is a witty and thought-provoking axiom, the books locate them within a wider discourse that draws upon systems thinking and the debate over the importance of developing soft skills in business environments.

[edit] References

  • A Little Book of f-Laws: 13 Common Sins of Management. Ackoff, Russell L.; Addison, Herbert J.; Bibb, Sally. Triarchy Press, 2006
  • Management f-Laws: How Organizations Really Work. Ackoff, Russell L.; Addison, Herbert J.; Bibb, Sally. Triarchy Press, 2006
  • Idealized Design. Ackoff, Russell L. ; Addison, Herbert J.; Magidson, Jason. Wharton School Publishing, 2006.