Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies

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.

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.