Systems Thinking, 3rd Edition

Foreword to the Third Edition

A tribute to memories and contributions of Russell L. Ackoff to design thinking

The grand old man of systems sciences, my dear friend of the last 40 years, is no longer with us. Russell Ackoff left us, unexpectedly, on October 29, 2009, due to complications from hip surgery. Just a week prior, we had a beautiful discussion about the resurgence of the same set of old interactive problems. We also discussed how the growing concerns with frequent market bubbles, faulty business models, challenges of globalization, blind pursuit of efficiency at any cost, stubborn unemployment, surging deficit, the state of public education, and an increasingly polarized society have created an overdue doubt in the minds of many that the ...