Executive Monkeys and Ranking Industry Analysts

The compulsion to rank ICT industry analysts runs deep among AR and PR professionals and their bosses. Hierarchical analyst rankings are devised, measured, adjusted, improved, debated, cross-referenced and baked into budgets and calendars every quarter — regardless of whether any solid facts back them up. So the question is, why are these flawed rankings so important to so many bright people? A recent post at the Improbable Research blog, Monkey see, monkey see, points to as good an explanation as any. Seems neurobiologists at the Duke University Medical Center have found …

“When high-ranking monkeys are shown images of other monkeys glancing one way or the other, they more readily follow the gaze of other high-ranking monkeys, Duke University Medical Center neurobiologists have discovered. By contrast, they tend to ignore glance cues from low-status monkeys; while low-status monkeys assiduously follow the gaze of all other monkeys.”

Of course, if you want to add this research to your analyst relations training program, you can just skip the Improbable Research blog and go straight to the Duke news release, “Executive Monkeys Influenced by Other Executives, Not Subordinates“. But then you’d have to ask yourself… why’d you gaze that way?