James G. March

James G. March is a professor emeritus in management, sociology, political science, and education at Stanford University. Widely recognized as a pioneer of organization and management theory, March coauthored the classic books Organizations and A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. According to a 2003 survey for Harvard Business Review conducted by Laurence Prusak and Thomas H. Davenport, March is second in prominence only to Peter Drucker.

Coutou, Diane. Ideas as Art. Harvard Business Review 84 (2006): 83-89.

• If a manager asks an academic consultant what to do and that consultant answers, then the consultant should be fired. No academic has the experience to know the context of a managerial problem well enough to give specific advice about a specific situation.
  • On academic consultants.

• No organization works if the toilets don't work, but I don't believe that finding solutions to business problems is my job.
  • On artistic sensibility.

• ... we sometimes find that such heresies have been the foundation for bold and necessary change, but heresy is usually just crazy. Most daring new ideas are foolish or dangerous and appropriately rejected or ignored. So while it may be true that great geniuses are usually heretics, heretics are rarely great geniuses.
  • On leadership and the relation between madness, heresy, and genius.

• I am not now, nor I have ever been, relevant.
  • Said each year during the beginning of classes at Stanford.