Schaffner Media Partners

Thought leadership is a big buzz term in the big biz world these days.  Everyone seems to want to be a “thought leader.”  And just about every major consulting company–small and large–wants to tell you how you can transform yourself into one.

But what makes a true thought leader?  Are you a thought leader if you give info and advice?  What if you publish a book or do lots of speeches?  Do you have to have a column in The Wall Street Journal or give a keynote at the World Economic Forum?

I think a thought leader is someone who has something worthwhile to say.  And a sizeable audience that wants to listen.  No matter what a marketing consultant tells you, you can’t transform yourself into one overnight.

Having a well published book is often seen as the sine qua non of your rise.  Some people think that once they have it they will step through a door and become a highly-paid keynoter or go-to media source.   These are potential opportunities, no doubt; what surprises some authors however is the new, heightened level of competition they face with other established speakers and experts.   The future thought leader controls a critical variable in this process — the quality and rigor of their content.

In my career I’ve had the chance to edit and promote many exceptional folks considered thought leaders in management, public policy, science, and global strategy.  I’ve noticed these people share some core traits.  They work tirelessly to forge insight, experience, passion, and research into documents and public statements that other leaders truly pay attention to.   They test their conclusions and methods with peers, colleagues, and wider audiences.   They pay attention to the published work in their field.   They debate and welcome debate. Yes, “thought leadership” has many benefits, but it begins with the long careful work of creating impeccable content of high quality.  In short, true thought leaders don’t go out with their ideas until they are fully prepared.

* Consider these early steps to test (and improve) your readiness for rolling out your big ideas to a national or global audience:

* Be willing to revise, retry, and retest:Share your book idea, white paper, innovative strategy or killer app with informal peer groups;

* Ask colleagues or associates to read your big document and give you a written, objective review–consider paying a fee to encourage a thorough response;

* Create an informal focus group and have them fill out a short survey designed to draw out their views of strengths and weaknesses;

* Accept speaking invitations, local media interviews and appearances to get comfortable with and practice messaging your key points;

* Submit articles to professional, online, and local publications where barrier to publication is lower, and seek reader responses.

To spread your ideas, ensure they have the strength to make the journey.  More on this to come.

Anyone who has spent any time on the overblown, abstract mission statements or the tired PowerPoint slides will appreciate the new book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. An academic and management consultant, Rumelt does for corporate strategy what those therapists on The Learning Channel do for problem hoarders. Rumelt shows how to throw out the “Sunday words ” and cut through the data to identify and develop an effective strategy.

Rumelt’s method for writing strategy will be sweet succor to anyone staring at a mountain of business documents in search of a way forward. I know he’s already helped me. (In my last post, I wrote about Rumelt’s four signs of a bad strategy.)

Rumelt also identifies what constitutes a good strategy, and he says all good strategies share the same “kernel.” A good strategy “may consist of more than the kernel,” Rumelt says, but it must include one: “once you apprehend this kernel, it is much easier to create, describe, and evaluate a strategy.” [READ MORE]….

Have the Dodd-Frank financial reforms made it too easy for whistleblowers? Believe it or not, some critics are claiming this, citing the fact that the Dodd-Frank allows whistleblowers to receive a share of federal penalties or fines levied. In May, under the Dodd-Frank law, the SEC announced a program to make payments to whistleblowers who tips lead to at least $1 million fines, and the whistleblowers aren’t required to file internal complaints with their employers first.

But all it takes is a look at the Bernard Madoff scandal to know that the Dodd-Frank incentives aren’t superfluous–but absolutely necessary. The wreckage that occurs when the smart people fail to say something is made vivid in the best Madoff book to date–Wizard of Lies by Diana B. Henriques.

The extraordinary reporting in her account includes the author’s interviews with Madoff, family members, government regulators, whistleblowers, and other key players in the case. Henriques recounts how incredibly savvy financiers were willingly duped and refused to accept the obvious. (Read more…)

To innovate, you don’t need big, abstract ideas, just a fresh approach and some tools to help plot your successful execution.

That’s what you’ll get in a superb new book called Design for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers, by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie.

Ogilvie is the CEO of Peer Insight, an innovation strategy consultancy. Jeanne Liedtka, a professor and former associate dean at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, previously served as chief learning officer for the United Technnologies Corporation.

Designing for Growth is an illustrated guide that shows how to translate “design thinking” into practical, everyday tools. As the authors note, “Design thinking can do for organic growth and innovation what TQM did for quality – take something we always have cared about and put tools and processes into the hands of managers to make it happen.” In reading the book, it struck me how useful their tool would be in the publishing industry where ebooks and handheld readers have blown up the publishing value proposition. (Read more…)

Welcome to the 21st century workplace where every job, including yours, is temporary. New realities have led to a fundamentally and permanently changed corporate environment, and the sooner you accept these new realities and manage your work and team accordingly, the better off you will be.

That is the message of a guide offering detailed scripts for handling dozens of the toughest situations at work, authored by bestselling author, and veteran life coach and career expert Stephen Pollan and his coauthor Mark Levine: Workscripts: Perfect Phrases for High-Stakes Conversations (Wiley 2011). (Disclosure: I was Stephen and Mark’s editor in the early 2000s at HarperBusiness). [Read more...]