Robert L. Flood

In general, we seem to associate complexity with anything we find difficult to understand.

— Robert L. Flood

Critique in its many manifestations puts up a common opposition to instrumental rationality, because such a rationality can be linked to control in the human condition in a similar way to the idea of power in the control of the natural world.

— Robert L. Flood

Quality means meeting customers' (agreed) requirements, formal and informal, at lowest cost, first time every time.

— Robert L. Flood

An example from soft systems thinking is Checkland's appreciation of soft systems methodology. He wants to introduce hard systems approaches to deal with hard problems only after and through a soft systems analysis.

— Robert L. Flood

If Critical Systems Thinking is to contribute to enlightened societal practice, e.g., with respect to the pressing environmental and social issues of our time, it should be accessible not only to well-trained decision makers and academics but also to a majority of citizens.

— Robert L. Flood

Cybernetics, although not ignoring formal networks, suggests that an informal communications structure will also be present such that complex conversations at a number of levels between two or more individuals exist.

— Robert L. Flood

So far it has been ascertained that a root definition is a core description of purposeful activity taken from a specific point of view.

— Robert L. Flood

Positivism : knowledge is hard, real, and capable of being transmitted in a tangible form.

— Robert L. Flood

In the modern systems approach, the concept "system" is used not to refer to things in the world but to a particular way of organising our thoughts about the world.

— Robert L. Flood

We consider the notion of "system" as an organising concept, before going on to look in detail at various systemic metaphors that may be used as a basis for structuring thinking about organisations and problem situations.

— Robert L. Flood

Different methodologies express different rationalities stemming from alternative theoretical positions which they reflect. These alternative positions must be respected, and methodologies and their appropriate theoretical underpinnings developed in partnership.

— Robert L. Flood