1. A consultant is a person who takes your money and annoys your employees while tirelessly searching for the best way to extend the consulting contract.
Scott Adams (b.1957) U.S. cartoonist and humorist. The Dilbert Principle (1996)
2. While I acknowledge than an occasional natural monopoly may arise, and that enormous economies of scale may enevitably reduce rivalry to a few in some markets, I remain skeptical about any general policy of eschewing rivalry in favor of collaborative research and development.
Anne K. Bingaman (b.1943) U.S. lawyer. Speech University of Kansas Law School (September 19, 1996)
3. The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.
David Butler (b.1924) British psephologist. Quoted in Observer (London) (1969)
4. Market research can be not just misleading, but disastrous for people who work on instinct.
Terence Conran (b.1931) British business executive, retailer and founder of Habitat. Quoted in The Adventure Capitalists (Jeff Grout and Lynne Curry; 1998)
5. The ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth.
Helen Deutsch (1884-1982) U.S. psychiatrist. The Psychology of Women (1944-45)
6. Facts are the most important thing in business. Study facts and do more than is expected of you.
Frederick Hudson Ecker (1867-1964) U.S. insurance executive and chairman of Metropolitan Life. Quoted in his obituary. New York Times (March 20, 1964)
7. Like mushrooms, they look enticing, but their nutritional value can be suspect. Some are even poisonous.
Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S. telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. Referring to management consulting concepts. The Synergy Myth (co-written with Brent Bowers; 1997)
8. The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.
Celia Green (b.1935) U.S. psychophysicist. The Decline and Fall of Science (1977)
9 .My fundamental belief is that if a company wants to see the future, 80 percent of what it is going to have to learn will be from outside its own industry.
Gary Hamel (b.1954) U.S. academic, business writer, and consultant. Interview, Strategy + Business (October-December 1997)
10. Most of the information we use now is obtained free…and there is no way of knowing anymore whether the information on which we base our own information for distribution is true or false. But that doesn’t seem to matter; all that matters is that the information comes from a reputable source.
Joseph Heller (1923-99) U.S. novelist. Something Happened (1974)
11. People in the Market Research Department…are not expected to change reality but merely to find it if they can and suggest ingenious ways of disguising it…converting whole truths into half truths into whole ones.
Joseph Heller (1923-99) U.S. novelist. Something Happened (1974)
12. Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value.
Benjamin Jowett (1817-93) British theologian and scholar. Quoted in unforgotten Years (Logan Pearsall Smith; 1939)
13. I don’t like to hire consultants. They’re like castrated bulls: all they can do is advise.
Victor Kiam (1926-2001) U.S. C.E.O. of Remington Corporation. Going For It (1986)
14. The trouble with research is that it tells you what people were thinking about yesterday, not tomorrow. It’s like driving a car using a rearview mirror.
Bernard Loomis (b.1923) U.S. business executive. International Herald Tribune (1985)
15. If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.
Peter Medawar (1915-87) British zoologist and immunologist. New Statesman (1964)
16. We don’t believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any.
Akio Morita (1921-99) Japanese business executive. Referring to his rejection of in-house engineers’ concerns regarding lack of research into his idea for the Sony Walkman. Made in Japan (1986)
17. As large, high-tech corporations around the world reengineer themselves by downsizing and rightsizing, the first casualty is basic research. And with good reason. The uncertainty, the risk-reward ratio, and the sheer expense come at too high a price for a cost-conscious society, which includes belt-tightening managers and nearsighted shareholders.
Nicholas Negroponte (b.1943) U.S. academic, cofounder and director of MIT Media Laboratory. “Where Do New Ideas Come From,” Wired Magazine (January 4, 1996)
18. Many of the essentials of a fertile, creative environment are anathema to an orderly, well-run organization. In fact, the concept of “managing research” is an oxymoron.
Nicholas Negroponte (b.1943) U.S. academic, cofounder and director of MIT Media Laboratory. “Where Do New Ideas Come From,” Wired Magazine (January 4, 1996)
19. Some people use research like a drunkard uses a lamppost: for support not illumination.
David Ogilvy (1911-99) British advertising executive, founder and chairman of Ogilvy & Mather. Ogilvy’s advocacy of the importance of sound research reflected the experience gained during his early career selling George Gallup’s innovative sampling techniques to Hollywood studios. Quoted in “Anatomies of Desire: David Ogilvy,” BBC Radio 4 (September 4, 2000)
20. Research is always incomplete.
Mark Pattison (1813-84) British author. Isaac Casaubon (1875)
21. Scenarios are the most powerful vehicles I know for challenging our mental models about the world and lifting the blinkers that limit our creativity and resourcefulness.
Peter Schwartz, U.S. consultant and author. The Art of the Long View (1991)
22. There have always been a considerable number of pathetic people who busy themselves examining the last thousand numbers which have appeared on a roulette wheel, in search of some repeating pattern. Sadly enough, they have usually found it.
Fred Schwed (1901?-1966) U.S. author. Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? (1940)
23. They are the people who borrow your watch to tell you what time it is and then walk off with it.
Robert Townsend (b.1920) U.S. business executive and author. Referring to consultants. Up the Organization (1970)
24. We don’t spend $20, 000 on formal market research to predict a product’s success. We use space in our catalog to do the same thing. At the worst, the product bombs….we lose a few thousand dollars.
Lillian Vernon (b.1927) U.S. entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Lillian Vernon Corporation. Speech. “The Entrepreneur and the Professional Manager: Getting the Best of Both Worlds” (1998)
