My last book “Leadership Matters…The CEO Survival Manual” continues to receive positive feedback, and I’ve been pleased with the stories that have been relayed to me about the book’s ability to add value to the lives of those who have read it. In today’s post I have the pleasure of announcing my forthcoming book (to be released this fall) entitled “The Conventional Fool…Why What You Think You Know Is Probably Wrong“. In today’s text I’ll give you a brief overview of the book, and later this week I’ll actually give our readers a sneak preview inside one of the chapters…

The long and the short of the genesis of my new book is this…I simply loathe the substitution of original, innovative thinking for someone else’s over-used, antiquated, one size fits all, and often wrong thinking simply because it is (or was) made popular by someone of note. See if this resonates with you…

Can you even remember the last time you attended a business meeting where at some point in time the conversation didn’t break down into a verbal game of one-upmanship to determine who could cite the most colorful business axiom, come up with an obscure quote from Peter Drucker, reference a sound bite from one of Jack Welch’s old speeches, or mention something from “Good To Great”? From B-School students, to mid-level managers, to C-level executives, the business world is mired down amuck the plethora of unsubstantiated opinions, trends, misinformation, and other untruths taken as fact without even the slightest attempt at vetting the sound-bite de jure against the relevancy of the thought, or the context of the situation.

My question to you is simply this…Where are this generation’s real thought leaders hiding? The business world is chalk-full of so-called experts and gurus who in my opinion add little value to the advancement of business thought. Rather it is my observation that these purported experts often seem to relish in meaningless drivel and rhetoric while conspiring in the re-purposing and proliferation of trite business axioms and myths that are often older than my dead grandfather’s suits. You might be thinking to yourself “boy is this the pot calling the kettle black, or what?”, and while I’ve certainly been guilty at times of perpetuating dated theory, I have always tried to deal in the functional reality of not only what works in today’s global business world, but what will work into the future as things continue to evolve around us.

My new book “The Conventional Fool…Why What You Think You Know Is Probably Wrong” takes direct aim at conventional business wisdom by challenging the construct of the business theories that drive many of today’s executive decisions. This book is my attempt to separate fact from fiction, and to challenge everything that we have come to hold dear as universal principles of success. I will take aim at some of the great experts (past and present) in an attempt to reshape the way you think about business, leadership, innovation, and success. I fully expect to take a great deal of heat over this book. However the purpose of the book is to spur debate and to advance thinking, so I’d be nothing short of hypocritical if I didn’t encourage you to challenge my thinking in order to take it to another level as well.

I’ll be providing more updates on the book as we get closer to publication, and I look forward to your input and feedback.