10 new gurus you should know - Morningbull

10 new gurus you should know
You've heard of Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, and C.K. Prahalad. Here we introduce
the next generation of management experts who are changing the way business gets
done.
BJ Fogg
Silicon Valley.
"Persuading people through technology is the next social
revolution. Facebook demonstrates just how powerful it
will be." -BJ Fogg
Founder and director, Persuasive Technology
Lab, Stanford Univ., Palo Alto
Big Idea: Mobile technology will be the most
powerful way to influence consumers in the
next 15 years.
Clients: Procter & Gamble, Nike, AARP
When Fogg began studying how technology
could influence behavior back in 1992, he
faced some resistance to his ideas. But today
he's one of the most sought-after thinkers in
In his lab at Stanford, Fogg, 45, researches how Web site or cell-phone design can impact
consumers. While he's applying his findings to companies like eBay (where he's working to
improve customer service) and Nike (where he has helped simplify its sports technology line),
he's sharing insights with Stanford undergrads. In one of his courses on Facebook, students
are asked to create applications that persuade other users on the popular Web site.
Patrick Lencioni
Founder, the Table Group, Lafayette, Calif.
Big Idea: Most executives don't realize that the
internal health of a company is key to its
success.
Clients: McKesson, San Diego Chargers
Lencioni's books, which feature fictional
characters facing up to organizational problems,
aren't about to win any academic prizes. That's
fine with him. He thinks people seek simple
solutions to complex issues.
A former Bain consultant and HR exec at

Oracle, Lencioni, 43, started his business in 1997 because his felt most consultants ignored
organizational health. His eight books, including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Death
by Meeting, have sold a combined 2.5 million copies, and Lencioni earns $55,000 a speech.
At Southwest Airlines he was the first outsider to work with the executive team in 12 years. In
his latest work he turns to overwhelmed families - who, he says, need the same kind of help
his clients do.
Rakesh Khurana
Professor of business administration, Harvard
Business School, Cambridge, Mass.
Big Idea: Charismatic CEOs don't work;
management needs to become a profession, like
law.
Clients: IBM, Tyson Foods, American Family
Do business leaders have a responsibility
beyond earning profits? Absolutely, says
Khurana, who thinks the management should
be a profession with licensing tests, a code of
ethics à la law or medicine, and a stated
commitment to improving the well-being of
shareholders and society. Despite his scathing
condemnation of business school education, the 41-year-old was awarded tenure at Harvard.
Khurana has consulted for several companies about leadership, and he's cautioned against
what he calls the "irrational search for charismatic CEOs," a misguided belief that a CEO with
a magnetic personality translates to corporate success (it doesn't).
Valerie Casey
"I'm trying to make sure that sustainability is not just a line
item." -Valerie Casey
Leader, Digital Experiences Practice, IDEO;
founder, the Designers Accord, Palo Alto
Big Idea: A Kyoto Protocol for designers
Clients: AT&T, Samsung, Dell, Virgin
Inside design powerhouse IDEO, where she's
working on next-generation mobile products
for AT&T, Casey is the expert on all things
digital. But around the world she's fast
becoming a leader of the green-design
movement. Two years ago she decided to act

on her realization that a beautiful keyboard or mobile phone is still an object that creates
waste.
To get designers - and their clients - to think about sustainability before, not after, they create,
Casey, 36, wrote the Designers Accord, a set of guidelines that commits its signatories to
support sustainable design and requires them to track their own carbon footprint. It struck a
chord: More than 100,000 people and organizations - including Johnson & Johnson Consumer
Products, and Autodesk - have signed on.
Don Sull
Professor of management practice in strategic
and international management, London
Business School
Big Idea: Welcome uncertainty in turbulent
times.
Clients: Nokia, Mars, Baker & McKenzie
Sull didn't start off with ivory-tower aspirations.
After four years at McKinsey and private
equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice, he was
drawn to academic life as he kept observing
companies practicing "active inertia," or
dealing with current problems "by accelerating
activities that had worked in the past."
Sull, 45, now has new solutions for companies. One is to forget entirely about a grand vision,
which locks them into vague promises or could commit them to a doomed strategy. The other
is to embrace uncertainty, which he addresses in his upcoming book, "The Upside of
Turbulence." The takeaway: Companies still need a map, but it needs to be focused on a few
must-win battles and be fluid enough to be redrawn in the case of sudden shocks.
Joel Podolny
Former dean, Yale School of Management;
incoming vice president and dean, Apple
University, Cupertino, Calif.
Big Idea: Business schools must teach real-life
problem solving.
Clients: BP, General Mills, Royal Bank of
Scotland
If the current state of affairs is any indication,

we haven't done a very good job training our business leaders. But there's a new model,
thanks to Podolny, 43, who took over at Yale in 2005 and quickly overhauled the curriculum.
Gone from the core are courses like finance; in their place are courses on the customer and the
investor, which look at problems holistically. Now in its third year, the program has already
gained attention from other schools and companies.
If anyone needed validation about Podolny's creativity, they got it when he announced in late
October that he was leaving Yale for Apple, where he'll be building Apple University, the
company's first formal training and leadership program.
Nouriel Roubini
"I am not going to say I told you so, but I did."-
Nouriel Roubini
Professor of economics, NYU Stern
School of Business, New York City
Big Idea: Create a new global regulatory
framework.
Clients: IMF, U.S. Treasury, World Bank
They don't call him "Dr. Doom" for
nothing. The Turkish-born, Italianeducated
Roubini, 50, was the solitary
voice back in 2006 when he warned that the U.S. current account deficit, the housing bubble,
the rising price of oil, and "excessively easy money combined with a lack of supervision"
created a toxic mix that could cause a violent recession - if not the reordering of the world's
financial system.
He was early, but he was absolutely right. "I'm not going to say I told you so," he says, "but I
did." Roubini, who also runs a macroeconomic Web site, RGE Monitor, sees at least a year of
trouble ahead. "The short-run risk of a total financial meltdown has been reduced," but "the
recession train has left the station."
Janine Benyus
"We are creating a way for biological ideas to get into
human designs."-Janine Benyus
Co-founder, Biomimicry Guild and Institute,
Helena, Mont.
Big Idea: Innovate by imitating, or
"mimicking" nature.
Clients: Boeing, GE, Herman Miller, Kraft
Foods

After Benyus published her 1997 book, "Biomimicry," businesses in search of sustainable
practices started calling. The 50-year-old biologist - whose breakthrough concept is to apply
nature's best solutions to modern-day problems - now helps organizations invent eco-friendly
products and processes.
For Nike, it resulted in the creation of a swimsuit based on shark's skin. To help a $1 billion
carpet-tile manufacturer reduce waste, Benyus's team turned to the forest floor for inspiration
and designed a line of tiles inspired by the randomness of fallen leaves. They also studied
geckos and beetles to find a better form of adhesive products.
Up next? Her institute is partnering with architectural powerhouse HOK to design
international building projects that imitate ecosystems.
Dan Ariely
"People often and repeatedly make illogical yet
predictable decisions." - Dan Ariely
Professor of behavioral economics, Duke
University; member of MIT's Media Lab
Center for Future Banking
Big Idea: People are predictably irrational
Clients: Bank of America, Match.com, P&G
While serving in the Israeli army, Ariely
suffered third-degree burns. Throughout his
recovery, he found himself constantly
questioning his doctors' decisions, specifically
the process of alleviating pain.
His curiosity about human behavior led to two Ph.D.s, and now he uses his research to advise
companies on how to influence consumer decision-making. He's helped a large insurer reduce
cheating on its' claim forms, and he's helping create a toothbrush for Procter & Gamble that
reminds people to take their prescription medication. Ariely, 41, also studies the logic behind
spending patterns - what consumers are willing to spend on a product vs. their understanding
of its value. And that will make him a very popular man in this economy.
Niko Canner
Co-founder, managing partner, Katzenbach
Partners
Big Idea: Companies tend to avoid change, or
change at the expense of their core strengths.
Clients: T-Mobile, MasterCard, Pfizer

Canner, 37, has emerged in recent years as one of the brightest lights in both strategy and
organizational issues. Known for getting to the root of incredibly complex problems, he works
with CEOs and top executives to help them make huge strategic shifts without destroying the
existing culture.
He's helped T-Mobile reorient itself as a consumer company rather than a wireless one. He's
also worked to globalize Korean conglomerate Doosan Group and developed nonprofit
Acumen Fund's elite Fellows program. Now Canner and his team are focused on their own
long-term project: China 2024, a study that's following 114 new Chinese MBAs for 20 years
to learn firsthand lessons about China's business evolution.