Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies - Softcover

Ackoff, Russell L.; Rovin, Sheldon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1576753301 ISBN 13: 9781576753309

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

When was the last time you dealt with a bureaucracy—the phone company, an airline, a hospital, school, or government agency—and got what you wanted without weaving through a maze of infuriating hand-offs? Have you found these systems to be utterly indifferent to the inconvenience or hardship they cause?

Russell Ackoff and Sheldon Rovin say, "Enough is enough!" They have extensively studied organizational systems—how they function and malfunction, what drives them, and where their weaknesses are. Here they share both perversely entertaining anecdotes about the abuse of individuals by various bureaucracies and detail the creative—and deeply satisfying—approaches these people used to get even. Best of all, they offer successful strategies and tactics you can use to pinpoint the weakness of any system and exploit it to your advantage.

About this title

About the Author

Russell L. Ackoff is Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sheldon Rovin is Emeritus Professor of Healthcare Systems at the Wharton School of Business.

Reviews

If writing a book "for anyone who wants to take action and turn the tables on the many systems that abuse and frustrate them" seems a little vague, the authors, both emeritus professors at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, include a description of what a system is and detailed definitions of creativity. Woven throughout the book are anecdotes of various bureaucracies being subverted by savvy individuals, ranging from a traveler who falsely claimed to know the president of an airline in order to get on an overbooked flight to a group of friends in a restaurant who offered to buy wine for the people at a neighboring table in order to get them to stop smoking. Although aimed at those in the business world, the stories are compelling enough to interest anyone who's ever felt inconvenienced or frustrated by over-bureaucratized situations.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1576753301
• ISBN 13: 9781576753309
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192