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The postwar period has been variously referred to as the postindustrial age or the age of the computer. However, to best appreciate the fundamental changes characteristic of our era, we must address ourselves to the revolutionary new kinds of thinking being considered and adopted throughout our society.

AbstractThe recent reports that popular panaceas are not working most of the time is not surprising; they are applied anti‐systemically. These failures have two principal sources. First, they manipulate the parts of systems without regard to how their manipulations affect the whole through interactions of the parts. Second, they tend to do the wrong things righter rather than the right things. It is better to do the right thing wrong that the wrong thing right; the former leads to learning; the latter to reinforcement of error.

AbstractThree types of system are identified and differentiated: mechanical, organismic, and social systems. The evolution of our concept of an enterprise from mechanical to social is then traced, as enterprises are viewed from each of these perspectives. Some consequences of conceptualizing them as social systems are then discussed, including the consequences of (1) considering the parts of an enterprise separately, as is commonly done, that is, managing analytically versus synthetically; (2) supervising personnel who can do their jobs better than their bosses; (3) treating problems separately rather than systemically, and (4) taking disciplines as aspects of reality, that is, as categories of nature.

AbstractThe principles that guide the practice of the author and the reasons for them are presented. These principles have been extracted from 40 years of applying the systems sciences to managerial problems in practitioner—client relationships. These principles focus on the role of the practitioner in encouraging and facilitating the development of the relevant stakeholders during an engagement. This is done primarily through participative idealized redesign of the system which has the problems being addressed. What the practitioner must bring to the design process, his or her personal relationships with the responsible decision maker, and 'selling' are among the other aspects of practice that are discussed.

AbstractMany, if not most, social systems are trying to do things right, but are not doing the right things. Examples are drawn from transportation, health care, law and order, and education. In addition, it is argued that most corporations do not practice what they preach, and that such remedies as downsizing are dysfunctional and harmful to society. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.