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February 12, 2004

You Go, Guru

Back in August, John discussed the ranking of thought leaders in the book What's the Big Idea?. Criticizing the methodology, John suggested that publicity doesn't necessarily equate with productive contributions to management theory or practice.

Since 2001, the folks behind the Thinkers 50 have been offering their own list of leadership and innovation movers and shakers. That project -- which just released its 2003 ranking -- seems to have a more solid methodology. In addition to drawing on a survey of business people, consultants, academics, and MBA students around the world, the list is based on the following criteria:

Originality of ideas
Practicality of ideas
Presentation style
Written communication
Loyalty of followers
Business sense
International outlook
Rigor of research
Impact of ideas
Guru Factor

What do you think of the Thinkers 50 selections? Good calls? Bad calls? Who's missing?

Posted by Heath Row at February 12, 2004 12:37 PM | Category: ideas | 2 Comments

2 COMMENTS

Posted by: Frank Patrick at February 12, 2004 1:57 PM

Missing: Eliyahu Goldratt, author of "The Goal" and originator of the Theory of Constraints as a comprehensive and coherent approach to the management and improvement of organizational systems that provides guidance for globally profitable use of other, more local-oriented improvement methodologies.

His contributions include a general theory of managing a system through its constraints (it's current and anticipated weak links), specific methodologies for operations management and project and multi-project management (as well as other common business functions), and a toolset of "Thinking Processes" that are useful for everything from strategic planning, market offer development, logical problem solving through efficient root cause analyses suitable for dealing with complex systems, and day-to-day dilemma/conflict resolution and communications.

Posted by: Gautam at February 17, 2004 8:22 AM

Also missing , Ram Charan author and consultant whom fast Company profiled some time back

And I agree with Frank too. Goldratt is also a glaring omission!

Love that bit about Scott Adams being on the list at no. 27 ahead of people like Micheal Dell !

And I think Geert Hofstede should be higher up...in today's globalised world his Cross Cultural framework should be an essential part of management tools !

regards,
Gautam