Business 2.0 Guide to Gurus

Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - Business 2.0 Guide to Gurus Page 1 of 3 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search October 11, 2 Business 2.0 Guide to Gurus What some of today's leading business thinkers are thinking now, in convenient trading-card format. By Anne Schukat, October 2002 Issue There is a hazard to celebrating management gurus. We're all suckers for their shiny new ideas. Why else did we fall for "first-mover advantage" or "opportunities before efficiencies," rules that now seem as anachronistic as buggy whips and pull-tab cans? So for our second annual collection of Management Guru Trading Cards, we've sought out thinkers who bring fresh ideas but whose advice seems grounded and practical - suited to an era focused on ROI, not IPOs. A few are, well, not exactly household names, but at least well known in the nation's executive suites and boardrooms. Among them are Noel Tichy and C.K. Prahalad, University of Michigan Business School professors whose books have long been regarded as staples of management literacy. Their latest theories -- on perpetuating effective leadership and maintaining symbiotic relationships with customers, respectively -seem particularly timely in light of the public's growing mistrust of big business and those who run it. Meanwhile, our Rookie of the Year, Larry Bossidy, comes to gurudom after a long and illustrious career as a top executive at General Electric (GE), AlliedSignal, and Honeywell (HON). Managers hungering for counsel on simply how to get things done have moved his new book, Execution, onto the nation's business best-seller lists. E-Mail This Article Format for Printing Related Articles • The Business 2.0 Guru Guide - October 01, 2001 Business 2.0 • Guru's Gamble - July 01, 2002 Business 2.0 • The Guru's Guru October 01, 2001 Business 2.0 • $50,000 for Your Thoughts - October 01, 2001 Business 2.0 Recommended Links • Management Gurus • Economic Gurus • Drucker, Peter F. • Moore, Geoffrey • Kanter, Rosabeth Moss • Peppers, Don 2002 Guru Scorecard Who's Up, Who's Down Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' Others in this year's set are relative unknowns whose bottom-line-oriented theories are particularly welcome in this age of shrinking budgets, like Laura Ries, who touts the effectiveness of low-cost PR in lieu of splashy ad campaigns. Then there's Robert Sutton, a professor at the Stanford University School of Engineering and the author of Weird Ideas That Work. He gave us a brand-new head-scratcher, which he calls Sutton's Law: If you think that something is your own original idea, it probably isn't -someone's sure to have said it before you. But of course, he adds, "It's not really my idea. I stole it from someone else." Remember: You read it here first. International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/articles/mag/0,1640,43504,FF.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - Business 2.0 Guide to Gurus Click Here. Click here to send a gift subscription Page 2 of 3 Browse all the gurus on our list this year in The Management Guru Trading Cards Gallery Article Page: 1 | Next Article > 2002 Guru Scorecard Most Valuable Player JIM COLLINS He made his name in 1994 with Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Now he's back with Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't, which has spent all of 2002 on the business best-seller lists. It's clear why Collins has made the leap: Good to Great is backed by the work of his 21-person research staff, which helped Collins track more than 1,400 companies to find 11 that met his criteria for success. The Disabled List GEORGE GILDER He predicted that fiber networks would make bandwidth an infinite resource. Could be -- all the telecom failures have left a lot of excess capacity out there. GARY HAMEL Last year hardly a speech went by without him praising Enron as a powerhouse of innovation. He failed to mention the innovative accounting. DON TAPSCOTT Skeptics abound like never before, so you've got to give him credit for sticking to the script: Net-powered businesses will take over the world. Rookie of the Year LARRY BOSSIDY Perhaps the oldest rookie in history, the 67-year-old CEOturned-guru has something going for him that others should envy -- a proven track record leading such major corporations as AlliedSignal and Honeywell. The Pinch Hitter RAM CHARAN When gurus sit down to write a book, who do they call? These days it's Charan, a famously peripatetic consultant whose firm, Dallas-based Charan Associates, has worked with GE, EDS, and DuPont. Though he himself writes and lectures extensively, he also collaborated with Noel Tichy on 1998's Every Business Is a Growth Business and did a lot of heavy lifting as coauthor of Bossidy's best-selling Execution. He's a player, and one who is ready to come into his own. Format for Printing E-Mail This Article Subscribe to Business 2.0 Recent Features Articles • The Management Secrets of the Brain - Oct 2002 • How Ikea Designs Its Sexy Price Tags - Oct 2002 • Is Yahoo's CEO The Right Guy For The Job? - Oct 2002 • Amazon Gets The Last Laugh - Sep 2002 • In Praise of the Anonymous CEO - Sep 2002 • Read More Features Articles Today's Top Stories • Jetson Chic • How Ikea Designs Its Sexy Price Tags • Fool Me Once... http://www.business20.com/articles/mag/0,1640,43504,FF.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Noel Tichy Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Noel Tichy Leadership Evangelist Professor, University of Michigan Business School Born: 1945 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $45,000 Must-Reads: The Cycle of Leadership (with Nancy Cardwell, 2002), The Leadership Engine (with Eli B. Cohen, 1997), Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will (with Stratford Sherman, 1993) Big Idea: Great leaders must also be great teachers Contact: www.noeltichy.com Tichy never goes out of style. In the mid-1980s, he transformed General Electric's leadership training program by having company executives, including Jack Welch, teach courses -- and by providing a forum for the leaders to be taught by their students. He advocates extending this "virtuous cycle" to a company's rank-and-file employees as well as its customers. His next book, Leadership Judgment Calls, to be written with fellow management sage Warren Bennis, will examine the processes through which political, military, and business leaders make tough decisions. Little-Known Fact: Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter ran behind Tichy on his prep school cross-country team. How to perpetuate leadership: 1. Only leaders can develop leaders 2. Pass on "teachable" leadership principles to your successors 3. Teachers and students must learn from each other Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|155|154,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Robert I. Sutton Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Robert I. Sutton Idea Machine Professor, Stanford University School of Engineering Born: 1954 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $20,000 Must-Reads: Weird Ideas That Work (2001), The KnowingDoing Gap (with Jeffrey Pfeffer, 2000) Big Idea: Creativity results from old ideas being deployed in new ways Contact: www.weirdideasthatwork.com Weird times call for weird ideas. Enter unlikely management thinker Sutton, an engineer known for jolting his audiences into creativity by confronting them with propositions they find suspect at best. In fact, he admits, "10 percent of them think I'm nuts." Not a problem: The inevitable discussion is exactly what Sutton wants, since the execs who argue the most, he says, tend to be the ones who best understand how to build a creative organization. Name: Address: Little-Known Fact: In high school, Sutton certainly didn't seem bound for academic stardom -- he finished his senior year with a 2.1 GPA. Excerpts from Sutton's list of weird ideas: No. 1 1/2. Hire people who make you feel uncomfortable No. 5. Find happy people and let them fight No. 7. Decide to do something that will likely fail, then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|154|153,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Laura Ries Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Laura Ries PR Proselytizer President, Ries & Ries Born: 1971 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $12,000 Must-Reads: The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR (with Al Ries, 2002), The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding (with Al Ries, 2000), The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (with Al Ries, 1998) Big Idea: Build brands with PR; maintain brands with ads Contact: www.ries.com In 1994, just one year out of college, Ries joined forces with her father, Al -- a 30-year veteran of the New York ad game -- and founded Ries & Ries, an Atlanta-based marketing firm that has consulted for Fortune 500 companies from IBM to Merck. She helped Ace Hardware refocus its branding so that shoppers would perceive it as more helpful than rival Home Depot. Ries has also become a sought-after speaker, espousing her mantra: "Nothing kills cool like advertising." Instead of busting the budget with splashy ad campaigns, she advises, fledgling brands should employ a much more cost-effective marketing tool: public relations. It is, as her growing roster of clients suggests, a welcome message for today's cash-strapped companies. Little-Known Fact: An avid triathlete, Ries completed a workout with her personal trainer the morning she went into labor with her first child, Conrad. City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' Name: Address: International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|153|152,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - C.K. Prahalad Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > C.K. Prahalad Growth and Innovation Sage Professor, University of Michigan Business School Born: 1941 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $45,000 Must-Reads: Competing for the Future (with Gary Hamel, 1994), The Multinational Mission (with Yves L. Doz, 1987) Big Idea: Companies need to identify and focus on their "core competencies" New Big Idea: Consumers want to participate in creating value for your company Contact: www.praja.com Prahalad gained renown in the late 1980s, after he and former student Gary Hamel told readers of the Harvard Business Review to focus their corporate strategies on what their companies do best. Though he's taken leave from the University of Michigan to run his own company, Praja, a San Diego startup that makes "business activity monitoring" software, he's remained focused on his own core competency: selling ideas. His forthcoming book, Co-Creation, will argue that companies benefit from allowing customers to play a role in shaping new products. The customers form emotional attachments, and the companies, in turn, gain valuable feedback. Little-Known Fact: C.K. stands for Coimbatore (where he was born in India) and Krishnarao (his father's name). Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|152|151,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Debra Meyerson Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Debra Meyerson Genteel Rabble-Rouser Associate professor, Stanford University School of Education Born: 1957 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $15,000 Must-Read: Tempered Radicals (2001) Big Idea: Companies need employees who want to rock the boat but also stay in it Contact: www.stanford.edu/group/WTO/people/visiting/meyerson.shtml Meyerson is a pragmatic sort whose ideas fit a less go-go era. She instructs "change agents" -- employees who seek to alter a company from within -- to take small actions to gradually inspire organization-wide attitude adjustments. For instance, Meyerson -- many of whose ideas come from her studies of workplace diversity and gender inequities -- points to the example of a senior vice president at a Fortune 500 company who quietly began accommodating staff members' needs for flexible working hours on a case-by-case basis. After 30 percent of her employees had chosen the family-friendly option, upper management adopted a similar plan companywide. Next on Meyerson's agenda: a study of how, why, and when our wired workforce decides to disconnect from the office. Little-Known Fact: Meyerson has stopped paying lip service to work-life balance: She and her husband will spend the coming months home-schooling their children while living on a sailboat in the Mediterranean. Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|151|150,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Niccolo Machiavelli Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) Renaissance Management Consultant Star Power: Speaking Fee: Priceless Must-Reads: The Prince (1532), Discourses on Livy (1531), The Art of War (1521) Big Idea: The end justifies the means CEOs are getting offed about as fast as the Borgias murdered their retainers. What better time to pick up Machiavelli, whose user's guide to power has remained in print for half a millennium. Long misunderstood as an advocate of intrigue and skulduggery, Machiavelli was merely practical. Good management, in his book, meant working with organizations as they are -- with opportunists, incompetents, and all the rest. (Sound familiar?) The Florentine sought to temper evil, advocating its use only for the greater good. He hoped for a prince with admirable qualities, yet reminded those not so well endowed that it was "useful to be a great pretender and dissembler." Some things, alas, never change. Name: Address: Little-Known Fact: Exiled by the mighty Medici family, Machiavelli wrote The Prince as an attempt to suck up. Though it took a while, his efforts to curry favor eventually worked -- until the Medicis were overthrown, leaving Machiavelli out in the cold yet again. City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|150|149,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Gary S. Lynn Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Gary S. Lynn Product Strategist Associate professor, Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management, Stevens Institute of Technology Born: 1957 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $15,000 Must-Read: Blockbusters (with Richard R. Reilly, October 2002) Big Idea: Great companies succeed because of great products Contact: www.leighbureau.com Most new products fail in the marketplace. But Lynn, a former aircraft design engineer, believes he's found a way to even the odds. During the past 10 years, Lynn studied the development of such blockbusters as Colgate Total toothpaste and the Iomega Zip drive to discover what makes a winner. It starts, he says, by clearly defining "pillars" like price, form, and features. Prototypes are quickly test-marketed until one wins acceptance, a process he gives the memorable (if unfortunate) nickname "lickety stick." Little-Known Fact: At 14, Lynn was fired from his first job -- by his dad. He then started his own window-washing business, amassing 70 regular clients. How to create a blockbuster: 1. Start by defining product "pillars" 2. Involve senior management in all stages of the planning 3. Share information with all departments 4. Encourage discussion, but don't lose sight of your goal 5. Keep throwing prototypes into the market until one of them catches on Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|149|148,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Larry Bossidy Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Larry Bossidy Quality Control Expert Former CEO and chairman, AlliedSignal and Honeywell Born: 1935 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $70,000 Must-Read: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (with Ram Charan, 2002) Big Idea: Execution is a systematic process of rigorously questioning and tenaciously following through Contact: www.leighbureau.com Bossidy developed his theories on the job -- and big jobs they were. Beginning as a financial management trainee at General Electric, he worked his way up through a series of manufacturing and financial posts to become vice chairman of the industrial giant in 1984. Seven years later he took the helm of AlliedSignal, energizing the conglomerate by improving quality controls (using GE's favored system, Six Sigma) and insisting on executive accountability. Earnings per share grew 13 percent or more for 31 consecutive quarters, attracting the interest of Honeywell, which bought the company and named Bossidy chairman. As a result, the 67year-old Bossidy has tremendous credibility in his second career as a management guru; he's been hired by four CEOs (he won't name names) who seek his counsel one or two days each quarter. Little-Known Fact: Bossidy was apparently executing at home too: He's the proud father of nine children ranging in age from 31 to 46. Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,2182,12|148|147,00.html 10/11/2002 Business 2.0 - Management Guru Trading Cards - Michael Gold Page 1 of 2 Business 2.0 Live! in L.A., Oct. 10 Expanded Search Octo Management Guru Trading Cards Read the Business 2.0 Guru Guide Is there someone we've missed? Tell us about your favorite guru. < Previous Choose a Guru Next > Michael Gold Professor of Improvisation CEO, Jazz Impact Born: 1955 Star Power: Speaking Fee: $17,500 Big Idea: Jazz is a metaphor for innovation Contact: www.jazz-impact.com Now for something completely different: a little syncopation and improvisation. Michael Gold, a bassist who once led the jazz department at Vassar College and went on to become vice president for operations at Unbank, a Minneapolis financial services firm, touts the connection between jazz and business, arguing that "jazz uses a system that enables collaborative improvisation to thrive -- the very same skills that many corporations rely on for success." He developed the idea for his consulting firm, Jazz Impact, in 1998 when a Lucent executive asked him to lead a workshop at the company. He's since put on 90-minute seminars -- complete with a New York jazz ensemble -- for a number of major companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Starbucks. He claims his program is especially effective in integrating diverse corporate cultures after a merger or acquisition. Little-Known Fact: To hone his improvisational skills, Gold intentionally gets himself lost in foreign cities. Name: Address: City: State/Province: Zip/Postal Code: Offer Details: If you like Business 2.0, you'll receive eleven more issues (12 in all) f $19 99 Th t' International Subscribers http://www.business20.com/gallery/0,,12|147|147,00.html 10/11/2002