Honestly, I wasn't overwhelmed by this book at first, since I expected something different, maybe "more acedemic", but this first impression changed fast. Russell L. Ackoff offers a wide variety of stories and perspectives on the topic and in the context of "systemic thinking", from fundamental essays to exemplary ones. Ackoff's thoughts are profound and inspiring, and it still is a mystery to me why his work is not more prominent to many managers and leaders I met (the same can be said of people like Deming or Drucker, of course). The content of this book is often more than 35 years old, but still seems to be ahead of our times.