"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world's most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If . anyone can make it Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer . everyone in management . should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and . even elegant diagrams." The Economist This is the second edition of a book which has already become a management 'standard' both in universities and on the bookshelves of managers and their advisers. Brain of the Firm develops an account of the firm based upon insights derived from the study of the human nervous system, and is a basic text from the author's theory of viable systems. Despite the neurophysiology, the book is written for managers to understand. The companion volume to this book is The Heart of Enterprise, which is intended to support and complement this text. "Stafford Beer's works represent required reading for everyone who believes that a capacity for rigorous thinking is an essential attribute of today's successful managers and administrators. Brain of the Firm shows a first-rate intellect at work and provides concepts, models and inspiration for both practitioners and teachers." Sir Douglas Hague, CBE

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world's most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If...anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer...everyone in management... should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and ... even elegant diagrams." The Economist This is the companion volume to Brain of the Firm and addresses the nature of viable systems, those capable of surviving. It does not use the neurophysiological basis elucidated in brain, but develops the same theory from first principles. This book declares that every enterprise is a system, and in particular must be a viable system. Viability is not just a matter of economic solvency; we need laws that govern the capacity of any enterprise to maintain independent existence. The Heart of Enterprise is full of examples (actual, author-generated examples) taken from management practice. "I consistently find that Stafford Beer provides the most useful analytical framework for understanding and managing an enterprise--public or private. Heart of The Enterprise offers a demanding but rewarding exposition of his approach and applications." Sir Douglas Hague. CBE

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world s most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA.
"If anyone can make it Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer everyone in management ..should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and even elegant diagrams." The Economist
In Brain of the Firm and The Heart of Enterprise Stafford Beer worked out the scientific laws that govern any viable system. They constitute the basis for this book which is concerned solely with the application of those laws to the understanding of any particular enterprise. In the form of a Handbook or Manager s Guide, Diagnosing the System deals with the fundamental problem of management how to cope with complexity itself. It shows you how to design (or redesign) an enterprise in conformity with the laws of viability, and will help you to diagnose faults in your organizational structure.

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world’s most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA.

"If…anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer … everyone in management…should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and … even elegant diagrams." The Economist Awarded the 1966 Lanchester Prize by the Operations Research Society of America for the best work published in 1966 in the field of management science this book has been regarded as a ‘Classic’ ever since.

"in the literature of management there is nothing to be compared with it…" Operational Research Quarterly

"This superb book is one of the very best I have ever read on management science." Management Science

"A brilliant book… which rose far above the ruck of jargon-ridden ephemera. This is a study—profound, wide ranging, witty, graceful and self-critical of the working of managerial systems…" The Sunday Times

"The sheer scale and scope of Beer’s book would rate it management text of the year in any list" The Statist

"Decision and Control is a major work, both elegant and erudite." The Guardian

"Beer’s imagination and enthusiasm stimulate those with whom he works to seek and cause improvements…" The Director

Over the last forty years, Stafford Beer has published a steady stream of books and papers in which he has applied cybernetic science to organizational problems. In all of these he has explained underlying principles and developed new theories and recorded a great variety of practical applications. He has now invented and demonstrated Team Syntegrity. Syntegrity is a powerful invention in the organization of normative, directional, and strategic planning, and other creative decision processes. The underlying model is a regular icosahedron (20 sides). This has 30 edges, each of which represents a person. An internal network of interactions is created by a set of protocols. A group organized like this is an ultimate statement of participatory democracy, since each role is indistinguishable from any other. There is no hierarchy, no top, no bottom, no sideways. Beer illustrates how continued dynamic interaction between persons causes ideas and resolutions to hum around the sphere, which reverberates into a kind of group consciousness. Mathematical analysis of the structure shows how the process is determined by the even spread of synergy. The aim of the book is to provide managers and their advisors with a new planning method that captures the native genius of the organization in a non-political and non-hierarchical way. The book includes an enquiry into Beer’s concept of recursive consciousness, based on this model, that is relevant to both neurocybernetics and the social systems sciences.

The Stafford Beer Classic Library "Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the worlds most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If...anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer...everyone in management...should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and...even elegant diagrams." The Economist This is a highly original book both in content and format. It presents thirteen 'arguments for change', these are linked by a personal commentary, and by a deeper, 'metalinguistic', commentary. Platform for Change is completely self-contained, does not deal at all with the nature of viable systems, but is directed towards the hope that our planet may yet remain viable -- and the human race survive.

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world s most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If anyone can make it Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer everyone in management should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and even elegant diagrams." The Economist
Based on the Massey Lectures, this book examines the reasons why the institutions of our society may well be failing, and opens a discussion as to what could be done. Drawing on the science of effective organization, which is his definition of cybernetics, Stafford Beer explains key cybernetic principles in words and pictures that all can understand. He concludes that our society commits more and more resources to plastering over the cracks in the system which simply reappear while freedom itself is increasingly eroded. The institutions must be redesigned, and returned to the people, to whom the scientific tools for doing this ought to belong.

Many times when someone dies the living are left with so many questions. We have heard over and over again "We just didn't know where to start." Our goal is that this guide will help you with the journey of seeking answers to equivocal death questions.

This is an expanded and revised update to the 2006 original 'Professional Locate Investigations'. This is a simple, straight to the point, guide to learning to conduct any type of skip tracing investigation, and use those skills and resources to also conduct any type of background records check or investigation, as well as assets & liabilities records check or investigation.

Straightforward and practical, this is the first book to provide detailed guidance for using neurobiological methods in the study of human social behavior, personality, and affect. Each chapter clearly introduces the method at hand, provides examples of the method's applications, discusses its strengths and limitations, and reviews concrete experimental design considerations. Written by acknowledged experts, chapters cover neuroimaging techniques, genetic measurement, hormonal methods, lesion studies, startle eyeblink responses, facial electromyography, autonomic nervous system responses, and modeling based on neural networks.