Behind the Times

The more important lesson to draw from the gurus’ underwhelming record is not that they fail to see into the future, but that they are in a certain sense behind the times. If there is one idea that unites the gurus, paradoxically, it is that the conventional wisdom is dead wrong. If you want to succeed, they howl in unison, you must break with the pack. But the guru literature itself is the pack. True to their calling as mass entertainers, they are followers rather than leaders.

From the Book The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong, New York, London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2009, page 245, ISBN 0393065537

Copyright © 2009 by Matthew Stewart

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