New Business Gurus Come From Psychology, Journalism, Executive Ranks

The guru game is changing.

Psychologists, journalists and celebrity chief executives crowd the top of a ranking of influential business thinkers compiled for The Wall Street Journal. The results, based on Google hits, media mentions and academic citations, ranked author and consultant Gary Hamel No. 1.

But Dr. Hamel is the only traditional business guru in the top five, which includes two journalists, Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell, and a former CEO, Bill Gates. Mr. Gladwell is among three thinkers in the top eight who focus on psychology. His 2005 book "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" examined the role of snap judgments in decision-making. Howard Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard best known for the theory of "multiple intelligences," is No. 5, while Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who has written about "emotional intelligence," ranks eighth.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

Their "snap judgments" are probably more seasoned than even they think.

I heard it said once that you go through three stages of knowledge:

1. "You do know what you don't know." (Apprentice.)

2. "You don't know what you don't know." (Impetuous journeyman.)

3. "You don't know what you do know." (Master.)

The businesses that these people founded and lead are, of course, much greater than the people themselves, and it is the people who comprise those organizations who actually carry-out the work. But the leaders are the ones who lead them, and that's an entirely different set of skills. Over the years I have had the privilege to watch several very-good senior executive leaders ply their craft, and I believe that in many cases they didn't realize just how much they did know. It was "instinctive" to them, but it's not instinct.

[JScott]

Bottom line they'll think up ANYTHING that makes em lotsa money.
Then ya think Bill Gates, but then ya think oh yeah, Vista.

[therealredstateblues]

Or undercut US workers by lobbying for increased H1B visas

[strifeknot]

Friedman is a guru of self-promotion and self-importance, and of nothing else. His embrace of utterly conventional free market mousekteer economics cannot be seen as fresh "outside the box" thinking, as he would have us believe.

[therealredstateblues]

Exactly - Friedman is an economic and journalistic charlatan. Why trhe media continues to fawn all over this guy who is so consistantly wrong, and exspouses overly simplistic explanations for complex issues is beyond comprehension

[ProfessorDuh]

No. Friedman, who was for the Iraq war before he was against it and then for it again, DEFINES the box of brainless, corrupt punditry in which we find ourselves trapped.

[ProfessorDuh]

Funny. Several of them have written about ways of passing off whims, biases and stupidity as "intelligence." Perfect for modern America.

[ibsteve2u]

When is somebody going to cut the crap, and write a book titled "Becoming a CEO: Morals and Ethics Are Just Words"?

[ProfessorDuh]

At last. A perfect title for the book Dick Cheney could write, if he weren't absolutely opposed to ever telling the truth.