Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies

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michael iva, September 11, 2007 (view all comments by michael iva)
Systems are everywhere mankind is. Some are good, necessary, and needed.

Many are superfluous, in excess, wasteful, and unwarranted. Sound familiar? The latter is what we should all be most concerned with. These are the systems that plague us, get in our way, and force all of us to deal with them at one time or another in our lives and careers.

This is a MUST READ, CANNOT-DO-WITHOUT BOOK for everyone interfacing with any type of BS business system, situation, or client. You can utilize the information and approaches in the book to help you learn how to prevail against these various types of everyday abuse.

CO-authored by my friends, collaborators, and simpatico mind-sets, Professors Sheldon Rovin and Russell Ackoff, of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, the book is aptly titled, 'Beating the system: using creativity to outsmart bureaucracies'...

Their book is about doing whatever it takes, whatever is necessary, knowing that there is always a way to formulate the correct approach to protect yourself against or prevail over the unnecessary, red-tape-infested, narrow-minded, fear-driven, petty, self-interests of today’s politically- correct, inbred, wasteful corporate or governmental systems. The authors point out how these practices so often result in poor service, watered-down customer value, or customer abuse.

This book was music to my anti-BS ears. I read it in one sitting with a Mona Lisa smile on my face, joy in my heart, and chills running up my spine.

I have been collecting useful pieces of information about ‘how to successfully fight and beat the system’ from every imaginable source for all of my adult life, but never have I found so much helpful information in one location. I felt like a California forty-niner gold miner, who in 1849 just struck a vein of gold, after this insightful, useful, and enjoyable reading experience.

The message of the book can be summed up with one of my favorite principles, cited by one of the authors: "The only rule that can't be broken is this one."

-Review by Michael Iva, author of '100 ways to kill a concept; why most ideas get shot down™'

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Product Details

ISBN:

9781576753309

Author:

Russell Ackoff and Sheldon Rovin

Publisher:

Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Author:

Ackoff, Russell L.

Author:

Ackoff, Russell Lincoln

Author:

Rovin, Sheldon

Subject:

Organizational Behavior

Subject:

Decision Making & Problem Solving

Subject:

Negotiating

Subject:

Problem solving

Subject:

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Organizational Behavior

Subject:

Self-help techniques

Subject:

Business Writing

Publication Date:

20050531

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Language:

English

Pages:

175

Dimensions:

8.48x5.62x.52 in. .51 lbs.