The Wall Street Journal Business Gurus List

May 6, 2008

The Wall Street Journal Business Gurus List

Filed under: Lists — Todd Sattersten @ 12:38 pm

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.

Comments Off

not a guru

This 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!
http://ben.casnocha.com Ben Casnocha

I 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.
http://www.daverendall.typepad.com David Rendall

Hofstede 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
http://www.daverendall.typepad.com
Ed

I’d also rather listen to doers like Gates than pundits like Friedman.
http://www.christopheravery.com/blog/new-breed-of-business-gurus-touting-responsibility/ Christopher Avery

This 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/
http://www.800ceoread.com Todd S.

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.