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Hello and welcome to the programme.

Now, there is something you find in business thinking and business schools that you don't find in physics or in law or in medicine.

It is the phenomenon of the business guru, the superstar thinker, usually someone with a best-selling business book, a handful of useful

stories to tell, an inspirational PowerPoint presentation, and often a central, single, big

idea that explains everything, every corporate success and failure. The guru usually has dual

residence in the worlds of business consulting and in a reputable business school.

Now, the rise and fall of different business gurus tells us a lot about business as an academic

discipline, and the book sales gurus generate tell us a lot about the craving of corporate leaders

for some kind of answers to the many half-formed questions they struggle with every day.

So today we thought we might examine the phenomenon of the business guru.

Before we do, let me just give you some examples of names.

One of the original gurus, Peter Drucker, was back in the 50s.

One of his defining philosophies was called Management by Object objectives. Shoot forward to the 80s and 90s.

You find Tom Peters, co-author of a really big selling book in Search of Excellence. There was Michael

Porter who produced a model called The Five Forces. Please don't worry, listeners. We're not going to

look at all these approaches. We're more looking at the idea of coming up with an all-encompassing approach. Well, with me, to think about the whole

concept of the business guru, are three business thinkers, all superstars in their own way. So let us

meet them. First up, Linda Grattan, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School.

Linda, you are associated because you're the founder and chief executive of the hotspots

movement consultancy. What is the hotspots movement? Well, I'm really fascinated in work.

And at London Business School, I teach about work. I run an elective about the future.

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