Biography

John KOTTER

2003 ranking: 23

John P. Kotter (born 1947), is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, and a world-renowned expert on leadership, culture and managing change. Hailed as "the best speaker in the world on the topics of leadership and change" Kotter is a graduate of MIT and Harvard. He has been on the Harvard Business School faculty since 1972, where in 1980, he was among the youngest faculty members ever given tenure and a full professorship. His published output is prodigious, covering everything from general management to leadership to a biography of the Japanese industrialist Konosuke Matsushita.
Perhaps Kotter's key Work is A Force for Change (1990) though Corporate Culture and Performance (with James Heskett, 1992) is also significant.

Kotter is aware of the pitfalls of gurudom. There is a fine line between a brilliant management idea and a fad. "Managerial ideas need to capture something of human nature or organizations that are not just a function of what's happening this year or last" says Kotter. "Fads tend to be not quite Barnum & Bailey but hula-hoops. People come up with a term they can sell at the time. It is a question of fashion. If it is not based on a fundamental truth it comes and then goes." Kotter has no need for hula-hoops. He has spent a lifetime studying leadership. Long enough for both the academic and business world to recognize the importance of his contribution.

All Biographies