The Wall Street Journal yesterday had a major feature titled "New Breed of Business Gurus Rises." The article provides a ranking of the thought leaders in business today. The ranking system is based on the 2003 book What's the Big Idea? : Creating and Capitalizing on the Best New Management Thinking by Thomas Davenport. Davenport compiled the rankings using data from Google mentions, Lexus-Nexus media hits, and academic citations.
The methodology creates a systematic way of measuring popularity, but it seems problematic. Take the case of Bill Gates at #3 on the list. For the man who created Microsoft, people are constantly talking about him in the media, online, and in academia. It seems a stretch that business people look to Gates for advice.
Outside of Gates, the folks at the top are no huge surprise to folks who follow business books. Gary Hamel, Tom Friedman, Gates, Malcolm Galdwell, and Howard Gardner round out the top five. Below is a list of the gurus with their 2008 rankings and one of their noteworthy books:
| |Name | |2008 Ranking | |Book |
| Gary Hamel | 1 | Competing for The Future |
| Thomas Friedman | 2 | The World is Flat |
| Bill Gates | 3 | Business @ The Speed of Thought |
| Malcolm Galdwell | 4 | Tipping Point |
| Howard Gardner | 5 | Frames of Mind |
| Phillip Kotler | 6 | Marketing Management |
| Robert Reich | 7 | Supercapitalism |
| Daniel Goleman | 8 | Emotional Intelligence |
| Henry Mintzberg | 9 | Mintzberg On Management |
| Stephen Covey | 10 | Seven Habits For Highly Effective People |
| Jeffrey Pfeffer | 11 | The Knowing Doing Gap |
| Peter Senge | 12 | The Fifth Discipline |
| Richard Branson | 13 | Losing My Virginity |
| Michael Porter | 14 | Competitive Strategy |
| Michael Dell | 15 | Direct From Dell |
| Geert Hofstede | 16 | Culture's Consequences |
| Clayton Christensen | 17 | The Innovator's Dilemma |
| Jack Welch | 18 | Winning |
| Tom Peters | 19 | In Search of Excellence |
| Myron Scholes | 20 | --- |
| Ikujiro Nonako | 20 | The Knowledge Creating Company |
There are some gurus listed here who we have not given much attention to. Anybody read much on Hofstede or Nonaka? We will do some research as well.
P.S. Rebecca also has a post on the side conversation going on at wsj.com about the lack of women on the list.
Posted by Todd S. at May 6, 2008 12:38 PMThis list is so bogus, Todd. Is Michael Dell really a guru? Why? Is Geert Hofstede more influential than Tom Peters? By what measure?
I hate it when msm panders like this. It's bogus.
You guys should do a REAL list!
Posted by: not a guru at May 6, 2008 4:57 PMI would listen to Bill Gates way more than I would Gary Hamel. Anyone who's a doer like Gates has more street cred for me than a guru or professional commentator.
Posted by: Ben Casnocha at May 6, 2008 10:00 PMHofstede and Nonaka would be more familiar to the academic business community. Hofstede did a lot of work on the values of people from different cultures and his research is still the standard for most discussions in that area. He is influential because, in a sense, he created the language that people use to talk about cultural values. As globalization increases, his ideas will continue to be even more relevant.
Nonaka co-wrote The Knowledge Creating Company with Hirotaka Takeuchi. It was a textbook on knowledge management for my doctoral program. They created a unique way for categorizing, managing and sharing implicit (personal/subjective) and explicit (objective) knowledge. This topic is also increasingly relevant as companies seek to maximize their intellectual capital.
I think both Nonaka and Hofstede are on the list because of the influence of their work outside popular business media. It appears that the rankings were based, in part, on academic citations. This explains how they could be "gurus" without most people ever hearing about them.
David Rendall
www.daverendall.typepad.com
I'd also rather listen to doers like Gates than pundits like Friedman.
Posted by: Ed at May 9, 2008 2:59 AMThis means managing attention is what leaders want to learn about. The attention of one's employees is a leader's most scarce resource. When you learn to focus attention by the way you lead, you get to leverage extraordinary results. My entire remarks here:
http://www.christopheravery.com/blog/new-breed-of-business-gurus-touting-responsibility/
I think there is something in the doers as well. What this ranking is about is how much people talk about you, not necessarily the quality of the ideas.
Posted by: Todd S. at May 9, 2008 1:43 PM