Charles West Churchman—Philosopher of Management

West made numerous intellectual contributions to management and to philosophy during a career that spanned over 60 years. They were many and manifold. If you had to pick just one thing that would sum them up what would it be?

Churchman both embodied and projected the field’s moral conscience. He held philosophically that science and ethics were two sides of the same coin and this strong belief informed his practice and teaching. West came to this commitment early in his career. As an undergraduate, his first teacher in ethics at the University of Pennsylvania was a graduate student by the name of Thomas A. Cowan (Cowan went on to become a philosopher of law at Rutgers University. Tom was also an Irish raconteur with a lifelong interest in the works of James Joyce and became an internationally recognized expert on Finnegan’s Wake. Tom and West forged a lifelong friendship and colleagueship.) West recalled that Cowan began his first class session with the statement “There is no difference between Science and Ethics. We will spend the rest of the semester exploring this proposition.” West, as we know, spent a lifetime on it.

For example, in 1994 reflecting on his long career in OR/MS Churchman (1994) stated, “My notion was that a society and journal in the subject of a science of management would investigate how humans can manage their affairs well. For me ‘well’ means ‘ethically,’ or in the best interest of humanity . . .” (p. 109). For West, ethics applied to all aspects of science and management.

Following his death Churchman’s wife of 50 years, Gloria, reflected to Peter Fimrite (2004) of the San Francisco Chronicle, p. B5: “Academic philosophy wasn’t satisfying to him. He wanted philosophy to have meaning in the world. He wanted to insert an ethical dimension into science. And he really made it his job to remind all these CEOs that they had ethical responsibilities.” In my view, it was this all-encompassing commitment to ethics that stands out above all of his other major contributions to management and OR/MS.

But these ethereal ideas of ethics and humanity appear to be too “soft” for many hard-nosed practicing managers. They think it gives rise to loose thinking and sentimental attitudes in a world that in reality is hard and difficult. Did he understand that?

Yes, West recognized this and made disabusing people of these, what he thought were unwarranted, notions one of his main objectives. He devoted his entire career to promoting human flourishing by applying rational and systematic thinking. For example, he taught that the raison d’etre of OR/MS was “to secure improvement in the human condition by means of the scientific method.” ¹ Each of the key words in this definition was essential in his view. He recognized that science and rational thought were the most powerful tools humankind had yet developed to solve the problems it faces; but he also believed that science was rendered superfluous or even dangerous unless it was applied in a manner that actually served humanity. Consequently, the word secure, and the concomitant behavioral change it implies, was crucial in his thinking. In his H. Rowan Gaither lecture delivered in May 1981 at the University of California at Berkeley he explained: “The verb ‘to secure’ is (for me) terribly important, because problem solving often appears to produce improvement, but the so-called ‘solution’ often makes matters worse in the larger system . . . The verb ‘to secure’ means that in the larger system over time the improvement persists” ² (emphasis added). Thus, he argued not only should operations researchers and managers seek scientifically based optimal solutions, ³ they must also ensure that these solutions are implemented for the benefit of society. Moreover, these improvements must be real and persist. And, in order for improvements to be tangible and sustainable they must be compatible with the larger system. This in his view constituted the ethical mandate of OR/MS and, for that matter, for all management. For Churchman finding management solutions without ethics was potentially dangerous and, yet, taking an ethical stance without the capacity to realize it by means of the powerful methods of science and management rendered one impotent. Both are required.

Yes, West’s other way of talking about “to secure” was to stress the need for the actual “implementation” of theoretical and analytical research results. In an article in Interfaces he observed, “I am often inclined to put the implementation questions first.” He goes on to ask the sine qua non question: “Can anything be changed?” Managers, he argued, should first determine what change is possible. Then, plan to secure the best possible change. He inquires, “Should the implementation question not accompany the whole process from its very beginning to its very end?” (Churchman, 1979, p. 21, as cited in Interfaces, 1982, Vol. 12, p. 12). He always wanted to know if and how well analytical studies were being implemented. In the 1950s at one of the very first ORSA (Operations Research Society of America) meetings, West chaired a session “Case histories 5 years after—A symposium” in which the participants were required to report on what had actually happened to the recommendations they had made at the sites they had studied five or so years before. Most reported that in practice very few of their recommendations had been fully implemented. The problem of implementation became a lifelong challenge for Churchman. I recall that with our colleague Al Schainblatt he focused on the crucial relationship between the manager who was responsible for taking action and the scientist or the analyst who advised him. They proposed that one of four ideal types of relationships obtain between the scientist making recommendations and the manager who must act on them—separate functionalist (Like ships passing in the night), persuader (I know better than you), communicator (Tell me what you want), and mutual understander (Let us share our information and values and work together). In their studied opinion, the most effective relationship for implementation was achieved when a deep condition of mutual understanding was reached between the advisor and the action taker (Churchman & Schainblatt, 1965). They lamented the fact that in their experience effective relationships of true mutual understanding were seldom realized.

This strong belief in implementation fortified by a personal commitment to serve led Churchman to contribute substantial amounts of his time and talent to public causes. Among his many contributions, he served as chairman of the National Academy of Sciences committee assigned the task of getting automobile drivers to use seat belts. The available science clearly demonstrated that seat belt use materially improved safety, reducing the risk of crash injuries by about 50%. Nevertheless, at the time the committee was appointed only about one in seven drivers actually buckled up. (Today, seat belt use has increase from 14% to about 88%.)

His other public service endeavors included being appointed to the Council of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The implementation problem he addressed there was how to get researchers to study infectious hepatitis, a serious, debilitating disease that few researchers studied due to its intractability and the resulting lack of publication possibilities. He also spent considerable time advising the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Perhaps by discussing some of West’s latter contributions, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. Why don’t you back up and recap some key elements of his early life.

West was born August 29, 1913, to Clark Wharton Churchman and Helen Norah Fassitt in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents came from a long line of Philadelphians. His father was an architect; his mother, an occasionally irascible sort, was the proprietor of an antique store. Being a curious and precocious youth Churchman’s first intellectual love, and it became his abiding one, was for philosophy. A far-ranging love for wisdom captivated him his entire life, right up until the time he passed away.

Churchman studied philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1935, a master’s degree in 1936, and a PhD in 1938, all in philosophy. Prior to completing his dissertation, he began teaching philosophy at Penn. Then in 1945, at the tender age of 32, he was elected Chairman of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Philosophy, at the time one of the most prestigious philosophy departments in the world.

West began his academic career as a logician-mathematician-statistician. His PhD dissertation Toward a General Logic of Propositions (1938), completed under the noted logician Henry Bradford Smith, demonstrated that a broad family of logics could be generated from a more parsimonious set of elementary premises than previously thought possible. (He soon after engaged in a debate with the well-known logician Alonzo Church about the completeness of his proofs.) His early articles and books included Elements of Logic and Formal Science, Theory of Experimental Inference, and Methods of Inquiry: Introduction to Philosophy and Scientific Method (the latter with Russell L. Ackoff). These works emphasized the application of formal logic, statistics, and mathematics to practical problems.

With this early career success in logic and statistics why did he did he venture off to study issues that were more managerial and humanistic in nature?

Basically, West found that the study of pure logic and statistics wasn’t adequately fulfilling. It just wasn’t where his heart lay. The philosopher at Penn who influenced him most was Edgar A Singer, Jr. Singer was one of the last students of William James at Harvard. James wrote a letter of reference for Singer to Provost Harrison at Penn on March 27, 1896. It began as follows:

“I regard Edgar Singer as the best all-round man for the philosophical business who we have had among our students in the 30 years during which I have given instruction in philosophy here.” James goes on the explain “ I say philosophical business, for there is no kind of task assigned to him, logical, metaphysical, or experimental, which he has not been able to do in a superior technical fashion . . . .” ⁴ Singer’s strong conviction that all of philosophy and the sciences were integrally related, as taught by James, was a central part of the strong intellectual heritage he passed on to West.

As an epistemologist Singer was a pragmatist who held that experience and empiricism—that is, data—ultimately could not be separated from ideas, reflection, and theory and that, moreover, science and values are thus inherently inseparable. Indeed, Singer maintained that all of the sciences and methods of inquiry were, in the final analysis, predicated on one another. West’s early teacher Tom Cowan had also studied under Singer. A common theme in the James/Singer worldview was that in order to understand one discipline fully and apply it to real world problems a researcher must be able to “sweep in” all of the other disciplines and points of view. Churchman and Russell L. “Russ” Ackoff, his first doctoral student, set out to demonstrate this proposition and in 1946 published a monograph, Psychologistics, a book that posited a necessary connection between a broad array of scientific disciplines. Moreover, it “rounded the corner” by showing that any foundational logic itself was actually predicated on some fundamental psychological and moral premises. This insight was among those that underlie West’s claim that it was essential for operations researchers to understand the larger system in which any given problem is embedded. The real world, in his view, is ultimately one inseparable whole, a whole system. No matter where a researcher began, given a “presenting problem” ⁵ he or she must be able to “unfold” it and gain access to its greater and more encompassing dimensions, at least up to the largest implicated system discernable. This expansion of thinking is necessary because there are always additional factors lurking in the environs that will influence the outcome of any proposed solution when it is enacted, often in profound and surprising ways. Ackoff and Fred Emory later updated these themes for a broader research audience in On Purposeful Systems (1972). Contemporaneously, this point of view underlies much of Ackoff’s important conception of systems as messes in which every abstracted problem interacts materially with many other problems. The concept of messes can be traced back to James’ observation that the world—that is, Churchman’s “whole system”—is “one great blooming, buzzing, confusion.” By unfolding the attributes of any isolated problem up through its hierarchy to larger systems a researcher inevitably will encounter a mess.

This notion that most really important policy situations must be dealt with as “messes” is one of the most important concepts yet developed to try to cope with the knarred problem complexes facing society today. Recently, my colleagues and I have tried to gain some insight into the education mess that so plagues our society by drawing on Russ Ackoff’s concepts and the tradition that traces back through Churchman, Singer and James. ⁶ As I recall the importance of the larger system was driven home to West by his experiences during World War II (WWII).

In retrospect, WWII was pivotal. During the war West served as a mathematical statistician at the Frankford Arsenal of the U.S. Army in Philadelphia developing experimental methods for testing small arms ammunition. As a result of one study, he concluded that he must challenge the reining conventional wisdom of what was known as scientific quality control statistics. The prevailing decision rule—based on a control system that had been developed in accordance with the generally accepted “scientific” theories of luminaries Walter A. Sheward, Jerzy Neyman, and Egon Pearson—in application permitted the military to accept a lot of ammunition with a less than 1% chance of misfiring in the soldier’s rifle (99%+ confidence interval). West demonstrated when this rule was applied to lots of munitions in practice they actually could have as much as a one third chance of being accepted. He pointed out that the outcome of realizing such an acceptance rate would be that hundreds of thousands of soldiers who might fire hundreds of rounds a day would on average each experience at least one misfire. Thus, given the volumes of firings involved the result could be tragic. (West developed this approach about 30 years before Motorola and G.E. implemented the “Six Sigma” process. According to Lt. Gen. Levin H. Campbell, Jr. between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day the Industry-Ordnance team furnished the Army and 43 foreign nations with 47 billion rounds of small arms ammunition and approximately 11 million tons of artillery ammunition. A 1% error rate would result in about 470 million misfires. Six Sigma or a related acceptance program would reduce the misfirings to less than 2000.) ⁷ Thus, combatants using ordnance accepted by the prevailing rule were thereby daily being placed at risk of death or injury, many while still in the heat of battle. Human values, West averred, must trump statistical artifacts such as standard deviations and he worked diligently to “secure” a change in the decision rules. Churchman spent over a year arguing his case to the military bureaucracy before that change was finally made in the Army Ordnance’s procedures.

In another study at Frankfort Churchman discovered that in practice different investigators who were performing strength of munitions materials tests at 15 different labs located throughout the U.S. were reporting noticeably different results despite the fact they were following the exact same protocol, using the same instruments and performing the very same test. After carefully studying different lab technicians at work he concluded that, just as astronomer’s had to learn how to adjust the time-observations of astronomical events collected by different observers due to a source of bias that in 1822 F. W. Bessel called the “personal equation,” managers must also be wary of an “organizational equation.” He promoted a new system-wide program for the synchronization of calibration. This was the beginning of a career-long concern for the theory and practice of the process of measurement and its role in management and scientific decision making. His classic article “Why Measure?” published in 1967 has helped generations of managers and scientists understand better the assumptions they make when they are dealing with quantitative data. ⁸ (West enjoyed cooking for students and friends. For a scholar who spent a great deal of his career dealing with precision in measurement he was remarkably intuitive in his treatment of recipes. “Just a little,” “until it looks about right” were precise enough for him.)

Most importantly, however, the Frankford Arsenal experience convinced West that the methods of science could be effectively applied to improve operations in the world’s institutions and that, moreover, this application of the scientific method when properly conducted could serve for the overall betterment of humanity. As the war came to an end he was eager to pursue this idea in an academic setting.

This appears to be a crucial career decision point. What happened?

Upon returning to the philosophy department at Penn, Churchman and Ackoff, proposed to establish an “Institute of Experimental Method” dedicated to applying Singer’s philosophy to a broad array of social problems such as management, city planning, and education. This proposal in applied philosophy, however, was far too worldly for the traditional philosophers on the Penn faculty. They flatly rejected it. Moreover, at the same time, Ackoff’s teaching appointment was not renewed. So, in 1948 Churchman resigned as Chairman of the department and accepted an appointment as Associate Professor of Philosophy at what is now Wayne State University in Detroit. Several labor union leaders had expressed interest in the founding of such an institute and indicated that they would provide support. Russ Ackoff and Tom Cowan joined him. However, financial support for the institute at Wayne State never materialized and soon the trio was looking for other opportunities. (The Detroit experience did significantly affect the lives of all three, however. Each met and courted their wives there. West and Gloria, a student in one of his first classes, were married in 1954.)

Heavily influenced by their experience during WWII and intent on applying their way of thinking to the incipient field of operations research in 1951 Churchman and Ackoff moved to the Department of Engineering Administration at Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio. (Cowan joined the faculty of the Rutgers University Law School. The Thomas A. Cowan Professor in Law Chair at Rutgers is named in his memory.) At Case, West and Russ designed the first graduate program in operations research and granted the first PhD specifically in the field. (Actually, the 1955 PhD dissertation, Use of Storage Water in a Hydroelectric System, written by John D.C. Little and chaired by Physicist and OR pioneer Professor Philip M. Morse at MIT qualifies as the very first doctoral dissertation in the field. Little went on the join the Case faculty.) While at Case, West and Russ published the highly influential foundational textbook: Introduction to Operations Research (1957, with E. Leonard Arnoff). A crucial difference between this text and its predecessor Morse and George E. Kimball’s 1951 classic Methods of Operations Research was its emphasis on the systems approach and its methodical grounding in an interdisciplinary Singerian philosophy. The basic formal model building techniques were obviously included (Parts IV-IX), but they were sandwiched between a set of broader systems considerations. Introduction begins with a deep discussion and definition of OR and provides case examples illustrating the application of systems thinking. It emphasizes the need for employing a variety of disciplines to fully understand a problem (Part I). This is followed by a treatment and suggestions on how to formulate problems well and how to analyze and understand the organizations in which solutions must be implemented (Part II). Next is a discussion of what models are, how to construct them, and how to use them to solve problems (Part III). The book finishes with a full discussion of selecting and training personnel and organizing them in order to bring an OR project to successful completion. (Part X). Introduction makes clear that the practice of OR is more than just an exercise in mathematical modeling. Instead a broad array of disciplines must be brought to bear if the analysis is to be complete and proposed benefits are to be secured. The book was based on lectures delivered at Case beginning in 1952 and many students—some of whom themselves became luminaries in the field—contributed to its content. Royalties were assigned to Case and used to create a laboratory of industrial electronics and to establish graduate scholarships in OR.

Clearly, through his teaching at Case and his publications West helped establish the emerging field of OR/MS. What other steps did he take?

West was a key member of the group of 73 individuals who met with MIT professor Morse at the Arden Estate in Harriman N.Y. on May 26, 1952, to form the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA) and he maintained his involvement with ORSA throughout his career. But ORSA was just one avenue. For West it only dealt with one part of the need. So, not surprisingly, West was also among a splinter group of ORSA members who believed, along with Mel Salveson, William C. Cooper and David Hertz, that eventually every practicing manager in any conceivable managerial context would need to master the power of the management sciences and that, consequently, ORSA acting alone was not up to accomplishing this mission. Churchman was an active participant in the December 1, 1953, meeting in New York that launched The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS). Bill Cooper was elected TIMS’ first president; Churchman became the founding editor of TIMS’ flagship journal Management Science. In 1962, he served as TIMS’ ninth president. With the founding of TIMS, the field became popularly known as OR/MS. (In 1995, ORSA merged with TIMS to form INFORMS—The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.)

We both met West and studied with him at Berkeley during the early 1960s. What made him leave Case and move to California?

By the late 1950s, the excitement of developing a new program at Case had played itself out and both West and Russ began to consider other opportunities. In 1958, Churchman was offered and accepted a position at the Graduate School of Business Administration of the University of California, Berkeley. (Ackoff returned to the Wharton School at Penn where he became a professor of management science and founded the Anheuser-Busch research center. He was associated with that center until his death October 29, 2009.) At Berkeley, West founded the school’s graduate program in OR/MS in the business school and helped establish the Center for Research in Management Science (CRMS). A considerable amount of leading edge research and attendant publications, contributed by faculty and students from all over the Berkeley campus, emanated from CRMS under West’s directorship. Meanwhile, from 1962 through 1963, he served as Research Director for System Development Corporation (SDC) in Santa Monica, arguably the world’s first computer software company.

True to his belief that all non-trivial problems where embedded in a larger system West maintained that the potential reach of management theory and OR/MS must be, to the extent possible, all encompassing. Consequently, he continued to seek new ways to apply his systems way of thinking. In 1963, following conversations with then NASA Director James Webb about the need to apply OR to the many daunting problems faced by society at large, Churchman became the primary force behind establishing a Social Sciences Program at Berkeley’s NASA Space Sciences Laboratory. The Lab had underway an extensive number of physical science projects conducted primarily by Berkeley’s famous astronomy and physics faculty. It had begun research in the physical, biological, and engineering sciences—their notion of “multi-disciplinary” under the direction of its first director, physicist Samuel Silver. Churchman convinced Webb and other NASA officials that a truly multi-disciplinary approach must also include the social and management sciences. NASA agreed and supplied the funding for his proposal. West was appointed Director of the Social Sciences Program and Associate Director of the Spaces Sciences Laboratory. In the process, he was also appointed University of California Research Philosopher. Thus began several decades of highly innovative Singerian-Churchmanian scientific research on a remarkable variety of management issues in areas like urban planning, ecology, forestry, criminology, transportation, human-machine interfaces, sanitation, space travel, communications, planning and budgeting, and, naturally, the process of scientific inquiry itself. Progress on the projects undertaken within this cornucopia of research was reported in weekly seminars that were almost always highly charged, both intellectually and emotionally. Ian, you and I attended many of those sessions. I think you will agree with me that they were one of the most intellectually stimulating and educative parts of our Berkeley experience. (And, this non-credit pursuit had to compete with another enormously mind-stretching activity on campus: Mario Savio, Jack Weinberg, Bettina Aptheher, Joan Baez, and other activists in the Free Speech Movement of 1964 to 1965 played out a political dialectic at Berkeley in opposition to the administrative establishment on campus of President Clark Kerr and Chancellors Edward W. Strong and Roger W. Heynes, all of whom were forced to deal with a unique set of issues.)

The Space Science seminars were certainly stimulating. These seminars were just a part of West’s ongoing struggle to provide a firm philosophical foundation for management, management science, and the newly emerging field of information systems. Part of the great experience we had at Berkeley was meeting frequently with West as he pursued his larger scholarly agenda.

As we look back at what West wrote while at Berkeley, it does indeed form a formidable corpus of management knowledge. Many managers and scholars are familiar with one or more of West’s books. However, taken collectively, his works establish a rich and pragmatically oriented philosophical foundation not only for OR/MS but also for management in general and many other applications of scientific thinking to management. His first book in this genre, Prediction and Optimal Decision, was published in 1961. The book explores the interpenetrating relationship between problems of value and problems of fact, a knotty set of issues with which all practicing managers and operations researchers as well as theoreticians must cope. West worked on this philosophical issue his entire career.

The year 1968 saw the publication of Challenge to Reason. Churchman asks the question of whether it is possible to understand the larger or “whole” system well enough to ever guarantee the real-world validity of scientific, especially OR/MS, results. Challenge is frequently quoted, “How can we design improvement in large systems without understanding the whole system, and if the answer is that we cannot, how is it possible to understand the whole system?” (p. 3). And then, “The problem of systems improvement is the problem of the ‘ethics of the whole system’” (p. 4). This book received the 1968 Academy of Management Award.

Also, in 1968, The Systems Approach was published. This is a widely read and taught exposition of systems thinking that invites the reader to engage in a dialogue about the applicability of science for solving society’s problems. The book begins with a caveat: “Now, it is sheer nonsense to expect that any human being has yet been able to attain such insight into the problems of society” the author asserts “that he can really identify the central problems and determine how they should be solved. The systems in which we live are far too complicated as yet for our intellectual powers and technology to understand. Given the limited scope of our capability to solve the social problems we face, we have every right to question whether any approach—systems approach, humanist approach, artist’s approach, engineering approach, religious approach, psychoanalytic approach—is the correct approach to understanding of our society. But a great deal can be learned by allowing a clear statement of an approach to be made in order that its opponents may therefore state their opposition in as cogent a fashion as possible” (Preface). The book then describes in a very accessible way the rudiments of systems and how to analyze and understand them, complete with several examples and case studies. Throughout the limits of systems analysis are stressed; yet, in the end an optimistic tone is struck. “And finally, my bias: . . . The systems approach is not a bad idea.” (p. 232). The book received the 1968 McKinsey Book Award for its outstanding contribution to management.

Challenge raised the question of the existence of a guarantor for scientific results. West’s next undertaking was to address this question frontally. Among the muses Churchman inherited from Singer was a “dialectic of the schools.” All theories and procedures for knowledge generation, Singer averred, depended on assumptions made about a priori laws or theories and about a posteriori facts or experiential data. Singer’s Experience and Reflection (1959), which West edited and published posthumously, shows how various epistemological traditions such as rationalism, empiricism, and criticism are based on differing assumptions about the role of laws and facts. Adhering to any one of these epistemological traditions results in a different kind of knowledge. In The Design of Inquiring Systems: Basic Concepts of Systems and Organization (1971) Churchman takes a quantum leap beyond Singer’s original insights. Having been a major contributor to the effort he was well aware that systems analysis, operations research, and information technology were being applied to a variety of social problems and he was deeply concerned that all too often this activity was undertaken without a very thoughtful understanding of the underlying knowledge generation processes involved. Drawing on the insights of leading philosophers—Leibniz, Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and Singer—Churchman examines the implications of each school with respect to two key processes: design—which he describes as activities in which human beings consciously attempt to change themselves and their environment in order to improve the quality of their lives (such activities including operations research, planning, programming, budgeting, engineering design, and architecture); and inquiry—the process which produces knowledge, especially actionable knowledge. Design, inquiry, and systems are knowledge-based tools people use to better their lives. West’s quest in this book is to determine “the nature of the guarantor of the validity of the results of man’s attempt to gain knowledge” (p. 274, emphasis added). The Design of Inquiring Systems constructs a philosophical platform from which to create and critique knowledge-based tools and to assess the assumptions we make when accepting the result as knowledge. ⁹ It is Churchman’s map for reaching for a guarantor.

West’s approach to writing The Design of Inquiring Systems was a study in design itself. As he pondered the relevance of the ideas provided by each historical philosopher, he reread their works in the original (he was facile in several languages) and encouraged several of his students to do so as well. Weekly he held a seminar in his U.C. Berkeley office in 620 Barrows Hall, a magnificent setting that faced the San Francisco Bay and, depending of the extent of fog on a given day, offered a vista that stretched out beyond the Golden Gate. Tom Cowan, who visited from Newark frequently, helped facilitate several of these ad hoc sessions. As you will recall, Ian, you and I and Frederick Betz were early participants in these on-going sessions. The sessions were lively, both intellectually and emotionally. Each of us had our own ideas about the relevance of the material we had read for dealing with modern problems. Churchman, with Cowan’s help, was immensely skillful in directing such animated discussions toward productive results. Crucially, for those of us who were not yet fully comfortable “duking it out” with noted philosophers, West encouraged dialogue among us and with him. Tom Cowan was a natural interrogator. Often West nudged Tom (actually Cowan seldom needed prodding) to follow his instincts and challenge everything that was said by everybody, and especially to challenge West’s ideas themselves. Witnessing the interplay between these two powerful and creative minds was a profound experience in itself. Moreover, the experience reinforced what we were reading. Dialectic and dialogue were central to West’s (and Tom’s) view of inquiry. They were practicing what they encouraged us and others to do.

Beyond his concern for the foundations of practical inquiry, Churchman was afraid that in the computerized information age, the systems approach was being viewed as a panacea. To correct this mis-impression or abuse, he wrote The Systems Approach and Its Enemies (1979) in which he argues that rationality is severely limited. Other approaches, specifically politics, morality, religion, and aesthetics, must be incorporated in the mix if improvements in the human condition are to be secured. Enemies discusses how it is possible to sweep these non-rational concerns into an analysis. Of course, this sweeping in process tends to convert a well-structured problem into a mess.

Thought and Wisdom (1982) was West’s last full-fledged book. It served as a reflection on his career in applying OR and other mathematically based methods to a wide variety of social problems. In the book, he concludes that thought, as reflected in the systems approach, stresses the pursuit of truth. But, in real life discovering the truth alone is inadequate. Creating and securing successful solutions also desperately requires wisdom and an emphasis on the good and the beautiful. The book is based on the H. Rowan Gaither Lectures he delivered in May 1981 at U.C. Berkeley and on a series of related studies. It suffered, frankly, from poor editing; but, nevertheless, many believe it is among his most penetrating works. West elaborates on some of his key themes: connectedness (he was fond of quoting Romans 12: “so we being many are . . . individually members of one another”), future generations (they are crucial stakeholders in all we do), the importance of coping with and learning from failure, and the design of one’s life as an ongoing aesthetic conversation.

Dick, you are overlooking the importance of “outrage” as the principle motive force in West’s quest to secure improvement in systems. For Churchman, the problems the world faces called for much more than just what John Dewey called a “felt need.” People should be morally outraged when public and corporate systems are not managed well. And West was! “It would be a good thing,” he avows in Thought and Wisdom, “if the systems planner’s germination was moral outrage and not just a mild felt need. In other words, I do not think we should view the major problems of the world today with calm objectivity. We shouldn’t first ask ourselves for a precise and operational definition of malnutrition. We should begin with ‘kids are starving in great numbers, damn it all’!” (1982, p. 17). Whenever possible, West spoke up on what he viewed as the pressing problems facing humankind.

Yes, and that influenced much of his later work at Berkeley. One major source of moral outrage for West was the prevalence of violence around the world and its devastating effects on humankind. Beginning in 1983, he helped found a program in Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) at U.C. Berkeley and taught in the program up until he retired in 1996. The founding premise of PACS, true to Churchman’s views, is that war and other forms of violence, despite their omnipresence, could be mitigated and transformed through the application of knowledge, if the use of that knowledge was adequately guided by humanistic values. The program introduced students to methods for critically analyzing the social, economic, political, and ecological structures in the context of conflict, power, and processes of change. Given the complex and multifaceted nature of violence and its causes, West and his PACS colleagues naturally expected the students to approach their studies from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives. PACS majors were encouraged to develop a practical and integrative understanding of peace theory and research, and to practice what they were learning by taking advantage of internship opportunities in both local and global settings.

So far, we have spent most of this interview discussing West’s intellectual life and have little to say about him as a person. He could, as you know, be prickly at times.

Oh, yes. Yet, I believe that West Churchman was at base a caring man. He cared for his students, especially those who were willing to undertake quixotic-like projects that tested the limits of science or helped resolve some outrage. In fact, he often told students that one was not really qualified to become an operations researcher or manager unless he or she had attempted a major project and failed. (Several of his students worked on some of New York Mayor Lindsey’s OR efforts and despite good analysis and good intentions in the end failed to achieve much in the way of sustainable results.) On the other hand, West could also be somewhat erratic in his relationships. He had a way of questioning what you were doing that could be perceived as threatening and he was an adherent of “tough love.” Many students wanted him to invest much more of himself in them than he was willing to. At some crucial times, he indicated to them that they were now on their own.

Many students and followers tend to heap adoration on their mentors, especially when they are as charismatic and powerful as Churchman. West was uneasy with such adoration and generally reacted negatively to it. He wanted his students and audience to listen to his ideas and then go out and use them on their own. He had thousands of followers but never demanded that they form a tight rigid “Churchman-school” or to necessarily pursue his personal research agenda. Rather, he released a diaspora of systems thinkers who spread out widely through academia, industry, and society.

About the mid-point in his career West took up knitting. Some of his students were the first recipients of his sweaters. (West also relished in telling the story of when, following a meeting of leading operations researchers who were advising a U.S. government agency, he and the acclaimed mathematician Abraham Charnes were seated at the airport awaiting a plane that had been delayed. Abe opened his leather briefcase and began examining a huge stack of computer printouts. West opened his canvas bag and began knitting. This picture, he said, captured the difference between their approaches to OR and to management.)

West’s life was not without its rough spots. In the late 1970s, he succumbed to alcoholism. Perhaps this accounts to some of his irascibility during this time. But the experience of passing out when he was alone in his cabin in Bolinas jolted him. He joined AA, abstained from drinking, and for the rest of his life was instantly on-call at any time for any fellow AA member who was in trouble. The philosopher in West recognized that the 12-step program had helped him change his behavior substantially and subsequently he reflected on its applicability to the general problem of implementation. He often commented that imperfect as it was AA’s 12-step program was the most effective process he knew of for managing change.

AA marked another key phase in West’s personal and intellectual life. Although born a Catholic he attended Quaker meetings as a child and left the Catholic Church when he was 18. His early writings do not reflect much of an interest in religion. Singer did not stress religion in his work although William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience had influenced West’s philosophical thinking. Churchman’s experience with AA put the religious impulse in a new focus. AA emphasizes the existence of a “higher power,” however one conceives of it. ¹⁰ That power reaches beyond organized religion to embrace spirituality. Reason without spirituality, we learned from West’s later reflections, is blind and lifeless and ultimately without joy or hope. Spirituality is required to effect deep change in the whole system. This notion has influenced my own research. Since the 1990s, several colleagues and I have performed a series of spiritual audits of corporate America that reveal the personal meanings that workers and managers attach to the concepts of religion and spirituality and how they affect their lives.

West’s latter years were somewhat difficult. Parkinson’s robbed him of much of his vitality during his 80s. Yet, he approached his disease with acceptance of his belief in spirituality, and with equanimity, occasional cheerfulness, and, of course, philosophically. He once asked a visitor “Can you still be a philosopher if you are losing your memory?” To which the only answer seemed to be “If you can still ask that question, you are.” A photo taken near his death shows West seated on the porch of his Bolinas cabin, bright yellow socks, tan pants, chartreuse shirt, brown jacket, hands out stretched, fingers splayed, and an infectious smile on his face. Gloria and their son Josh put this photo on the face of a memorial piece. It is not a bad way to remember him.

I agree. Thanks for participating in this discussion.