Brainstormers - These gurus excel at helping execs tap their strengths and think creatively.

BusinessWeek - December 19, 2005

THE BEST THOUGHT leaders inspire us to get out of our cozy mental Barcaloungers and engage with the world around us in new, more productive ways. All of a sudden, a fresh look at long-accepted business notions and practices reveals them to be tired, flawed, and limiting. Here are some of the best at helping us expand our mental horizons.

     One of the most entertaining writers in the guru business in Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker . His latest book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , focuses our attention inward to help us better understand what goes into our snap judgments and to make us appreciate "the weird power of first impressions." In many instances snap decisions are better than more deliberated ones, he shows, though we must try to counter unconscious biases that can interfere.

     Getting perspective on how we make decisions is useful, but to delve more deeply into the art and science of leadership, Bid Business turns to strategic thinker C.K Prahalad . Prahalad, with a partner, coined the term "core competence" in 1989. His new mission, laid out in his recent book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits , is to get multinational companies to realize that the world's 5 billion poor represent a huge growth market for the right business model - and make up a huge pool of future innovators.

     Helping executives find their strengths is the focus of Marcus Buckingham , who worked at researcher Gallup Organization for 17 years. Buckingham, who published The One Thing You Need to Know...About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success this year, is working on the third book in a trilogy that started with the best-sellers First, Break all the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently and Now, Discover Your Strengths , which he wrote with Gallup colleagues. The book will focus on how executives can put their strengths to work on a daily basis.

     In Buckingham's new book, which he wrote solo, the Cambridge University-educated Brit explores issues such as the differences between managing and leading. His simple but radical advice for executives: Capitalize on your strengths, not your weaknesses. How? As Buckingham puts it: "Find out what you don't like doing and stop doing it."

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