Thought leadership, on thought leadership

Over three months this winter, I had some rather puzzling correspondence with a veteran speechwriter concerning a column she was going to write for the newsletter I edit, The Influential Executive.

I'd invited her to write a guest column and she suggested as a topic: how to help your leader become a thought leader.

"I can tell you from experience," she told me. Executives "are thirsty for content on how to be thought leaders. They're honestly clueless and willing to listen to anyone they think actually knows what they're talking about. Being 'thought leaders' is a corporate obsession. I promise."

Okay, I said, you had me at "thirsty." I gave her a word count and a deadline, and she agreed.

The deadline passed; I wrote to check  up.

"David, I would still love to do this but am just overwhelmed with work that came out of nowhere. I promise I didn't forget. I've sat down to write it a couple of times, but always get interrupted. ... I still have many thoughts on the topic to share."

Another deadline passed.

"This article has been on my mind constantly, but I haven't had a single chance to sit down and finish it. … my mom is sick, my car is in the shop ...."

Another.

"Look for it later tonight. I'm writing as we speak."

I get the article, which wanders like a drunkard, somehow in the course of 800 words managing to get off topic in three different directions.

I ask her for a revision, telling her, "My readers are going to come to this article greedily wanting what we're promising: 'So your client wants to be a thought leader.' I think we have to address the requirements and the tactics directly."

She replies:

"But I truly don't have a list of tips and tactics to offer. Read back to our first discussion in this email string. What I was thinking about is the concept of true influence and what separates it from visibility. My thinking about it all might be a bit out there. I don't even advise clients who really want to be true industry thought leaders to do traditional EV plans--not even keynotes unless the conference courts them. My alternative is that, if they're going to speak at conferences, stay in the trenches with a really forward-thinking break-out topic. I know, that's pretty radical. But talking head keynotes are becoming ... pedestrian ... for people who really want to set themselves apart. Are you okay with those kinds of ideas?"

Ah, yes, to the extent that I understood them, sure. "Perfecto!" she wrote. "That's exactly what I had in mind."

"I was so bummed when I first started to research this ... waaay back at the first of Dec.," she added. "I Googled 'thought leadership' and 'executive influence' to see what new and nifty things other consultants were doing that had maybe flown under my radar. And there was zilch! People have Web sites calling themselves leadership experts ... but with 'success stories' reporting they wrote and placed an editorial in a medium-market newspaper. Shriek!"

That was a month ago. Since then, silence.

How to make a souffle: First, get a stove.

How to be a thought leader (or a columnist): First, get a thought.

Comments

[Kristen]

Stories like this about my industry colleagues make ME want to "Shriek"!!!

This sort of behaviour is EXACTLY why communicators - whether speechwriters or any other area - are STILL not taken seriously by the executives we hope to counsel and advise.

At the very heart of being respected and listened to by ANY colleague is professionalism and competence. If you can't manage a commitment then don't agree to it!!! I don't care who it's for or whether it is a paid gig or volunteer - if you say you'll deliver something then you had bloody well better deliver it!!

I get that people are busy, but that is precisely why you ought to be more considering before you commit to someone to deliver something.

Shame on that writer, whoever she is! Her unprofessional behaviour reflects on all the rest of us communicators, and frankly, I resent her getting tar on MY brush!!!

[David Murray]

I hear you, Kristen, and agree with your SHOW UP philosophy. And having worked with you before on this basis, I know you live that philosophy, to the letter.

Of course, I wasn't counting on this column and her not providing it really didn't put me out.

I shared the exchange not to embarrass her, but because I think there's something about the topic of "thought leadership" that inspires flakiness in otherwise sensible people.

Can any one defend this concept as anything more than an utterly bankrupt bit of public relations jargon?

[Diane]

Such jargon takes the place of real leadership. Spew out enough jargon, and you're perceived as a thought leader. Actually have thoughts and, er, you're me. And I don't even get a writing gig.

(Who, me bitter?)

[Eileen Burmeister]

You can't "make" a thought leader. People are either genuinely wise or they're not...I don't think that's something we can formulate.

[David Murray]

So I'm corresponding this morning with speechwriter-turned-antiquarian book dealer Dan Danbom.

We're talking about this blog item and, separately, the demise today of Denver's Rocky Mountain News, one of Dan's hometown papers.

"The Rocky could have saved itself, had it followed my idea for topless home delivery. It's lonely being a thought leader."

(And when I asked his permission to post this, he assented and suggested I file it under "Breast Practices.")

Hey, come on. It's Friday.

[Eileen Burmeister]

It's hard to be offended when you're laughing. Good one Dan.

[Amy]

All I can say is, thank GAWD I turned in my article on time(ish) when I wrote for you, Murray.

And to your disappointing (non)correspondent/"veteran" speechwriter, people who live in glass offices shouldn't throw pens.

[Mark Ragan]

Has it occurred to you that her difficulty in writing this column is directly related to the fact that it's a load of BULL@#%T!

What would Larry have written?

Will someone please tell me what a thought leader is? I need to know because I too want to become a leader of thoughts.

Wait a minute. I think I AM a thought leader.

Never mind.

[David Murray]

Personal:

Thought leader, looking for thought needer.

[Ron Shewchuk]

Four ways to become a thought leader CEO:

1. Choose a tough issue that you know a lot about, and are passionate about.

2. Work tirelessly to address that issue: make it a cause your company supports with hard dollars; volunteer your time to chair industry or community organizations or committees that are focused on resolving the issue; finance original research that helps shed new light on the issue; establish scholarships, awards, foundations, etc. that help others get behind solving the issue.

2. Look for opportunities to join public conversations about the issue, which means getting your media relations people to make sure journalists know you're willing to comment on new developments, writing op-eds, and establishing a blog dedicated to the subject.

3. Deliver public speeches about the issue, and make sure you have meaningful things to say, including a call to action that motivates people to act.

4. Show some humility. Look for ways to publicly recognize others who are leaders on the issue to avoid overly aggrandizing your own role.

[David Murray]

Ron, that's a great description (hey, do YOU want to finish the thought leadership column?!).

But I'll bet no campaign like the one you describe ever started with a CEO or PR counsel scratching chins and saying, "Gee, how do we make Mr. Big a THOUGHT LEADER."

No, it started with a genuine idea/issue on the part of the leader and a PR person/speechwriter (like you) who knew how to make it bold and broadly appealing.

Once again, to my mind, rendering the term "thought leadership" unnecessary to any document except phony PR prospectuses.

[Ron Shewchuk]

No time for the column, David. Too busy exercising thought leadership in the field of barbecue philosophy.

[Bill Sweetland]

David:

Your post is hilarious. The artless cynicism of the speechwriter is disarming, charming, and infectious.

So is her short memory for what she had promised you. Her language approaches perfection! She has lost her mind to “thought leadership.”

For her edification, may I describe the process of thought leadership? It is at least an eight-step cycle. Here it is: thought breeder > thought feeder > thought leader > thought needer > thought pleader > thought heeder > thought seeder > thought weeder. And then the cycle begins all over again.

I would just ask Ron Shewchuk if he’s ever known a CEO with one original thought about anything. One CEO, one new thought. About anything! How about it, Ron? The ubiquity of Speechwriters With All The Answers in corporate America argues that Ron will be unable to think of a CEO who’s actually had a thought, let alone an idea that establishes him or her as a thought leader.

And thinking is hard work. And sometimes painful. Why should a CEO think when he can simply go two doors down the hall, stick his head in his speechwriter’s cramped quarters, and say, “Gimme a half dozen ideas on our company position on social responsibility. I want ’em by tomorrow.”

Thank God for Dan Danbom. Yes, Dan, being a thought leader IS lonely. So lonely that I’ve never seen anyone identified as a thought leader in the public prints. Like the pursuers of the Yeti and Bigfoot, no one has ever snapped a verifiable or even believable photo of the mysterious Thought Leader. He (or she) is wholly mythical.

What would CEOs do without these cant phrases to worry about and live up to?

What is a more interesting question: Who was the lonely, unsung genius who coined the phrase, “Thought Leader”? There is an art, subtle and esoteric, to these coinages. Not to just anyone is given the gift of starting an avalanche of hoop-de-do about nothing.

This is the real question here. Please let us coax the quiet, shy, unassuming wordsmith who wielded his or her smithy’s hammer and tongs on the resisting metal of our obdurate English language to fashion a gigantic time-waster, a new fad, a new source of income for consultants, who, baffled today, will tomorrow be experts in this new discipline.

[David Murray]

Wonderful stuff, Bill. I've tried to think of some legitimate thought leaders myself. This list, which goes back a ways, includes:

• Warren Buffet (on the economy and investing)
• Jack Welch (on business management)
• Bill Gates (on philanthropy)
• Lee Iacocca (on free trade)

I'm sure there are many I'm missing--and one doesn't have to be a national household name to be influential in a specific industry--but the point is it's no small thing to become one of these folks, and it comes from the person, not the person's speechwriter or PR agency.

[Ron Shewchuk]

Others that come to mind:

* Richard Branson on commercial space travel

* Steve Jobs on personal computing

* Richard Edelman on public relations

* Mark Zuckerberg on social networks

* Bill Sweetland on hyperbolic ranting (kidding!)

You're right, it's not easy to achieve that kind of influence or profile. But it's not impossible. What is impossible is to do it in a completely contrived way. The core of thought leadership is personal integrity, which can't be planned or spun.

[Dan Danbom]

Here's my idea of a Thought Leader: The first guy who wore his baseball cap backward. The first guy who figured out you could use the sleeve of your T-shirt to create a pocket for a pack of cigarettes. The first guy (may he rest in peace) who thought it would be a good idea to hold a match to his anus during a gas discharge. And, apparently, Rush Limbaugh.

[Sean Williams]

What marvelous comments! David, can't you just publish this exchange as an example of thought leadership? Influencial executives need to worry less about how to appear to be a thought leader and just exercise leadership. How is anyone perceived as a leader? It sure as hell isn't by following some kind of demented prescription...

This all reminds me of a client who, in the midst of a true sh!t storm of deservedly negative media coverage, called the external PR counsel to "do something about the bad PR." Of course, the external counsel said, "how bout if you stop doing things that result in negative coverage?"

That guy didn't get his contract renewed, but he had his self-respect.

Basta!

[David Murray]

sh!t storm:

a keeper