18 Facts About Stafford Beer

Anthony Stafford Beer was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School.

Stafford Beer is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.

Stafford Beer's father was William John Beer, chief statistician at Lloyd's Register of Shipping, who shared a birthday with his mother, Doris Ethel Beer.

At age 17 Stafford Beer was expelled from Whitgift School.

Stafford Beer enrolled for a degree in philosophy at University College London before leaving to join the army as a Gunner in the Royal Artillery in 1944.

Stafford Beer soon received commissions, first in the Royal Fusiliers, and then as a company commander in the 9th Gurkha Rifles.

Stafford Beer left SIGMA in 1966 to work for a SIGMA client, the International Publishing Corporation.

Stafford Beer left IPC in 1970 to work as an independent consultant, focusing on his growing interest in social systems.

In mid-1971, Stafford Beer was approached by Fernando Flores, then a high-ranking member of the Chilean Production Development Corporation in the newly elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, for advice on applying his cybernetic theories to the management of the state-run sector of the Chilean economy.

Stafford Beer was reported to have read and been influenced by Leon Trotsky's critique of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Stafford Beer was a visiting professor at almost 30 universities and received an earned higher doctorate from the University of Sunderland and honorary doctorates from the University of Leeds, the University of St Gallen, and the University of Valladolid.

Stafford Beer was president of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics.

In July 1994 Stafford Beer ran a residential course at the Falcondale Hotel in Lampeter.

Stafford Beer was married twice, in 1947 to Cynthia Hannaway, and in 1968 to Sallie Steadman.

Stafford Beer had five sons and two daughters, one of whom is Vanilla Stafford Beer, an artist and essayist.

Syntegrity is a formal model presented by Stafford Beer in the 1990s and now is a registered trademark.

Stafford Beer coined and frequently used the term POSIWID to refer to the commonly observed phenomenon that the de facto purpose of a system is often at odds with its official purpose.

Stafford Beer received awards from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1958, from the United Kingdom Systems Society, the Cybernetics Society, the American Society for Cybernetics, and the Operations Research Society of America.