Management ''f''-Laws are subversive epigrams about common management practices. Based on observation and experience, they are used to draw attention to entrenched ways of thinking about management and business that are often at odds with common sense or our actual experience.
Systems theorist
Russell L. Ackoff
Russell Lincoln Ackoff (February 12, 1919 – October 29, 2009) was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff was a pion ...
, his co-author Herbert J. Addison and Sally Bibb 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. Ackoff and Addison's ''f''-Laws might seem counter-intuitive. They are designed to challenge organizations' unquestioning adherence to established management habits or beliefs. 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."''
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".
Three collections of ''f''-Laws entitledA Little Book of f-Laws: 13 Common Sins of Management, Management f-Laws: How Organizations Really Work and Systems Thinking for Curious Managers have been published. While, if read in isolation, each ''f''-Law is a witty and thought-provoking axiom, the books provide a context that draws upon
systems thinking and the debate over the importance of developing
soft skills
Soft skills, also known as power skills, common skills or core skills, are skills applicable to all professions. These include critical thinking, problem solving, public speaking, professional writing, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, pr ...
in business environments.
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.
2006
* ''Idealized Design''. Ackoff, Russell L. ; Addison, Herbert J.; Magidson, Jason. Wharton School Publishing, 2006.
* ''Systems Thinking for Curious Managers''. Ackoff, Russell L.; Addison, Herbert J
2010
Business terms
Management theory