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.

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]….

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…)

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…)

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...]

Tim Harford can help.

An economist and best-selling author, Harford’s latest book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure (FSG, 2011), draws upon research and interviews with prominent thought leaders to reveal “adaptive management”—specifically, how to foster innovation and tackle tough problems in an increasingly complex economy. His thesis is that the way to succeed is to embrace trial and error, develop the courage to risk and know failure–and adapt from those failures with adjustments.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/best-business-books/how-successful-people-use-failure/596#ixzz1QUDhjMt6

Author Simon Mainwaring is a former Nike creative at Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, and worldwide creative director for Motorola at Ogilvy, and founder of We First, a branding consultancy. Mainwaring is among those who argue corporations need to build purpose and values into their business practices and partner with consumers on social causes.

Mainwaring believes social media are the tool for doing this through what he dubs “contributory capitalism.” Companies could make a philanthropic donation from every single transaction and use social media to share and track those transactions with total transparency. Imagine, for example, consumers scanning a barcode with a smartphone app that shows them how that single purchase will result in charitable transactions–say a dollar contribution to each of three corporation-supported charities–with a data picture updating how much has been given.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/best-business-books/is-your-business-a-force-for-good/624#ixzz1QUCuHBt4

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).

The authors fatefully pin the year of the transition to the beginning of the Great Recession: “In 2008 the workplace changed forever, forcing me to rethink and revise all the office communications advice I’ve been offering over the years.” Pollan concluded that “five elements” are driving the new workplace.

Read more: http://www.bnet.com/blog/best-business-books/why-your-job-has-an-expiration-date/647#ixzz1QUCX2Eyr

I’d never recommend you adopt survival techniques from a popular television show, but you can learn about people under duress and what makes them effective. While I am no hardcore woodsman, my sons and I enjoy the outdoors, and on a recent fishing trip Gabriel and I were resting in our tiny upstate NY motel room when we caught our first look at Dual Survival. The show teams up (it was concepted this way) two bushcraft gurus with different cultures and styles: Cody Lundin, an off-the-grid “wilderness hippie,” and Dave Canterbury, an ex-sniper, “military guy” survival specialist. Unusual for me, I fell in love with the show on the spot. [CONTINUE READING]

It’s true that new improvements in process redesign and advanced technology have delivered more productivity during the recession, squeezing more output from fewer staff, while managers learn to function with uncomfortably low staffing levels. As of the first quarter of 2011, output productivity was up over 3 percent for the economy from last year, and 10 percent for durable manufacturing!

Still millions of workers fear for their jobs, and managers are concerned about maintaining productive teams and employee morale when key pillars of job security are damaged or missing. Workforce turnover is high, wage growth is elusive, and companies continue to move millions of jobs and major operations overseas. National surveys identify outsourcing as a source of public fear and anger that few companies address. [CONTINUE READING]