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.

Instead of trying to specify a system in full detail, specify it only somewhat. You can then ride on the dynamics of the system in the direction you want to go.

Policy-making, decision-taking, and control: These are the three functions of management that have intellectual content.

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.

A stochastic process is about the results of convolving probabilities-which is just what management is about, as well.

It is the concept of likelihood that a real understanding of probability resides, and we must learn how to measure it.

There is, then, a logical priority about the arrangements, and logic has nothing to do with time.