Reflections on 40 years in the management field: A Parthian shot (friendly)

These reflections, both as a presentation at OR60 in 2018 and here, in written form, stem from many years of professional life spent trying to understand the everyday real world in order to bring about positive changes in real-world situations which are taken to be problematical. This paper has two aims: firstly, to explore some of the activities which have affected the development of Operational Research (OR) as a whole during its 60-odd year history; second, to introduce work by Sir Geoffrey Vickers. This focusses on what he calls the “appreciative settings” which create, structure, and change the patterns of on-going everyday life in the human tribe. This is work which can help to illuminate OR itself as a single coherent whole.