roughly the past decade, a third of
'The Thinkers 50' list has consisted of
the same group of individuals! The
data appears to suggest that some
management ideas have longer
traction and they seem to influence
management practices over a period
of time. Not only have some of the
thinkers routinely been included in
the list, but also they are considered
the cream of the crop. Management
gurus like Prahalad, Hamel, Porter,
Kotler, and Peters have been highly
ranked on a consistent basis over the
period 2001-2009, and, I am sure,
they will remain so for a much longer
period of time in the minds of many
management practitioners.
Where do management gurus come
from? Interestingly, 11 of the 16 ranks
have been occupied by academics.
While one may wonder how one
becomes a leading management
thinker while sitting in the ivory
tower, the notable academic management gurus have always
enjoyed traversing the two-way street
of academic thinking and the study of
real-world management practices. I
would find myself becoming an
armchair quarterback if I did not
regularly interact with standard
setters, regulators, accounting firms,
and business practitioners. Apart
from academics, you will find a few
business leaders ranging from the
flamboyant Branson to the much
more understated Gates in this
exclusive group on the List.
Another interesting question is when
do individuals who are consistently
viewed as 'guru material' leave the
List and when do new gurus join? To
answer this question, it is instructive
to consider the case of Greenspan.
One conjecture is that the global
financial crisis contributed to
Greenspan leaving the List in 2009.
Interestingly, when Greenspan was
ranked third in the List (the highest
rank he ever received), the Dow Jones
was hovering around 14,000. By the
end of 2009, the Dow had dropped to
10,000. People are sometimes swayed
by ex-post events regardless of what
the ex-ante assessments were. At the
time Greenspan stepped down from
the Fed in 2006, some considered
him to be greatest central banker of all
time, and one US politician
apparently said that he would prop
up Greenspan with sun glasses if,
God forbid, he were to die. To
provide a balanced perspective, even
at that time some argued that
Greenspan did not take steps to avoid
a bubble and may have kept the
interest rate too low for too long. On
the contrary, the same financial crisis
may have been the cause of Taleb and
Ferguson entering the List in 2009.
For example, while Taleb has held
steady with his ideas for years as well
as embraced for a long time
Mandelbrot's views on measuring
uncertainty based on the bell curve,
the global financial crisis probably
brought Taleb’s ideas to the forefront
and these ideas are slowly becoming
part of mainstream academic and
practitioner discussions.
Occasionally, the alleged reasons why
an individual was added to the List
may not be commonly viewed as
highly relevant to most when trying
to identify management gurus. For
example, some in the media alluded
to his TV ratings when Trump made
the List in 2007, and in fact, The
Times of London identified Trump as
"US Apprentice Host" in its listing of
the top 50 thinkers! I am not sure
whether he would view the ratings of
The Apprentice show as the
indication of his management
prowess.
Another example is Yunus. I
understand that Yunus created the
Grameen Bank Project in the late 70s
and has been its Managing Director
for over quarter of a century, i.e., he
has been focused on helping
Bangladesh make economic strides by
using a socially bottom-up approach
throughout his work. The fact that he
received the Nobel Peace Prize in
2006 and possibly the increased
attention given by strategic thinkers in
recent years to developing nations as
a key element of global corporate
strategy may have catapulted Yunus
to the List in 2009.
