The Harvard halo

On the NPR broadcast "Hidden Brain" Shankar Vedantam had as his guest Harvard Professor  Francesca Gino. She explained that the more experienced heart surgeons were leas likely to heed advice from the FDA and inexperienced ones. And that first that listened to people who weren't experts often came up with more innovative solutions. And that weaning red sneakers to teach an  HBS executive education class generated more respect than wearing a more traditional "uniform". This is a classic example of the Harvard Halo. Other R1's have a similar problem; the idea the "two step leverage (Garguilo et al) is an effective strategy remains an article of faith among those who have never worked in industry but who have been patted on the cake by sycophantic wannabes all their professional lives. I'll grant that the red sneaker study was fairly nifty in its design but not something that would be considered rocket science by a brain surgeon (a Brit humor allusion there).  But it's nonetheless a little nauseating to hear ideas so blindingly obvious lauded as if they were the next cure for cancer.