"Unfortunately, the gains for imagination are not free. The protections for imagination are indiscriminate. They shield bad ideas as well as good ones—and there are many more of the former than the latter. Most fantasies lead us astray, and most of the consequences of imagination for individuals and individual organizations are disastrous. Most deviants end up on the scrap pile of failed mutations, not as heroes of organizational transformation... There is, as a result, much that can be viewed as unjust in a system that induces imagination among individuals and individual organizations in order to allow a larger system to choose among alternative experiments. By glorifying imagination, we entice the innocent into unwitting self-destruction (or if you prefer, altruism)"
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People from ClevelandBusiness theorists from the United StatesSociologists from the United StatesStanford University facultyCarnegie Mellon University faculty
Original Language: English
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March cited in: (2002) Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation. p. 192
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_G._March
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James G. March
James Gardner March (January 15, 1928 – September 27, 2018) was an American business theorist and 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 (1958) and A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (1959).
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