Anthony Stafford Beer quotes

The system of transportation is not coherent; it is not treated as integral. Roads compete with railroads and airlines in chaotic fashion, and at immense cost to the nation. (Anthony Stafford Beer)
It is terribly important to appreciate that some things remain obscure to the bitter end. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
According to the science of cybernetics, which deals with the topic of control in every kind of system (mechanical, electronic, biological, human, economic, and so on), there is a natural law that governs the capacity of a control system to work. It says that the control must be capable of generating as much "variety" as the situation to be controlled. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
Management problems are not respecters of the company organization, nor of the talents of the people appointed to solve them. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
It is the concept of likelihood that a real understanding of probability resides, and we must learn how to measure it. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
Policy-making, decision-taking, and control: These are the three functions of management that have intellectual content. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
The strategies that managers employ are at least as important as the facilities at their disposal. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
A stochastic process is about the results of convolving probabilities-which is just what management is about, as well. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
There is, then, a logical priority about the arrangements, and logic has nothing to do with time. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
Certain management policies-stretching of credit resources, for example-may lead to great progress in good conditions; but, like the Grand Prix car in comparison with the Land Rover, they may not be robust enough to survive when the going gets tough. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
If cybernetics is the science of control, management is the profession of control. (Anthony Stafford Beer)
. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
Too close a view may interfere with one's grasp of an overall problem or concept. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
A slowly moving queue does not move uniformly. Rather, waves of motion pass down the queue. The frequency and amplitude of these waves is inversely related to the speed at which the queue is served. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
The aim of management science is to display the best course of action in a given set of circumstances, and this must include all the circumstances. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
We have, over the centuries, devised a management structure for running things, whether firms or whole countries. This structure depends absolutely on the limitations of the human hand, eye, and brain. The discoveries of management cybernetics, coupled with the techniques of operational research and with the new technology of automation, make possible a new way of running things which is not so limited. Yet we insist on retaining the original structures and automating them. In so doing, we enshrine in steel, glass, and semiconductors those very limitations of hand, eye, and brain that the computer was invented precisely to transcend. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
Clearly, if it is possible to have a self-regulating system that implicitly arranges its own stability, then this is of the keenest management interest. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
Hence we may recognize the subject of management cybernetics - which is seen as a rich provider of models for doing OR. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
General Systems Theory, as originally intended by Von Bertalanffy, is an ideal framework for the modeling of a business enterprise. Work, in its most civilized form should enrich, empower and emancipate. Thus we must continue to find ways to support work as a humanistic, not mechanistic endeavor. We must continue to seek out new models of business that support and enhance the individual as well as the collective whole. Given all this new technology, we need new institutions for handling it. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
The whole picture is complicated by the stockists and merchants who will try to exploit any shortages that may appear. The result is this. The feedback information from the industry's environment consists, first and foremost, of a forward order load. Much of this "demand for steel" will be bogus. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer
The problem with managing either a business or a prison by periodic rather than continuous inspection is that the "variables" are likely to be seriously out of control before the discrepancy is noted. (Anthony Stafford Beer)
The development of the Watt governor for steam engines, which adapted the power output of the engine automatically to the load by means of feedback, consolidated the first Industrial Revolution. View quote
Anthony Stafford Beer