The "Who Knew?" Guru

The findings of a recent Wall Street Journal ranking of the most influential business thinkers might surprise you. Only one of the top five thinkers is an actual traditional business guru -- which is not only interesting, but good news for my boss, Karen Salmansohn -- who is herself an unconventional business guru, with her best selling books -- like HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT A PENIS and GUT: HOW TO THINK FROM YOUR MIDDLE TO GET TO THE TOP, and BALLSY: 99 WAYS TO SCORE EXTREME BUSINESS SUCCCESS. So it seems Karen is part of a big trend. Meaning? I'll probably have my job working for her for a long time to come!

I spotted this trend in an article Erin White wrote for WSJ called "New Breed of Business Gurus Rises." Below are those top five. Check it out: 4/5ths of the bulk of them are a psychologist, 2 journalists, and a celebrity CEO.

1. Author and "traditional" consultant Gary Hamel
2. Journalist Thomas Friedman
3. Author and Journalist Malcolm Gladwell
4. Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
5. Harvard psychology professor Daniel Goleman

Each of these thinkers has done their share to change the way we "do" business. But rather than focusing on how they've changed business, we must focus on what this shift away from "traditional" gurus means for business.

Examining this trend leads us to many conclusions, but the main reason people are looking to unconventional gurus is because "time-strapped managers are hungry for easily digestible advice wherever they can find it." That's according to Thomas H. Davenport, a management professor at Babson College and the compiler of the ranking.

Today's most pressing business concerns include weighty issues like globalization, innovation, and motivation. Rather than relying on didactic, esoteric business theories and policies, managers are looking for easily digestible, yet still profound, pieces of advice. And they've found it in these not-so-run-of-the-mill advisers.

This new culture of gurus presents managers with a win-win situation. Because each business-expert comes from a different walk of life, people are getting a broader range of information. Each brings with them a special qualification or knowledge in a particular area that provides a more eclectic pool of information.

One dynamic missing in this pool, however, is women. Not one woman made it in the list of the Wall Street Journal's top 20. The lack of a woman's presence proves that there is another pressing business issue to be understood, namely, diversity. If you'd like to help solve our nation's diversity issues, I recommend you check out some of my boss Karen Salmansohn's unconventional business books -- which you can see in the book section on this site. Buy a few not only for yourself but friends -- and you will be doing your part to help to make sure there might be a woman business thinker on that list next year in WSJ!


Holley Simmons Reporting!