Leveraging Thought Leadership

Step into the world of thought leadership with host Bill Sherman on the latest episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership. Joining him is Anton Skornyakov, the Managing Director and co-founder of Agile.Coach, who brings a wealth of knowledge from his diverse background in mathematics, physics, and teaching Scrum methodologies. Anton's journey into the realms of leadership and coaching offers a fascinating exploration of how technical expertise can be translated into accessible language for beginners. Anton's multilingual proficiency – with Russian as his first language, followed by German, and English as his third – adds an interesting layer to his ability to communicate complex ideas in a clear and relatable manner. As he delves into the intricacies of teaching Scrum and workplace transformation, he shares valuable insights on the art of moving from highly technical jargon to language that resonates with beginners. His approach is rooted in active listening and attentiveness to the audience, ensuring that concepts are conveyed effectively and comprehensively. A key aspect of Anton's teaching methodology lies in the use of metaphors drawn from everyday experiences. One of his favorite metaphors involves assembling Ikea shelves, which serves as an analogy for understanding knowledge work. By comparing the process of assembling furniture to the nature of knowledge work – where the majority of time is spent on cognitive tasks rather than physical labor – Anton provides a tangible framework for grasping complex concepts. Through such relatable examples, he emphasizes the importance of managing knowledge work effectively to drive success in various industries. When it comes to identifying his target audience, Anton emphasizes the value of specificity. His insights are tailored for middle management professionals tasked with organizing work for their teams, regardless of the industry they operate in. By distilling his expertise into actionable advice, Anton aims to empower leaders with practical strategies for navigating unpredictable projects and fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. His goal is to make his insights accessible and applicable to a wide range of professionals, from software developers to non-profit managers. Anton's journey from training to writing his book reflects his commitment to validating ideas through real-world applications. By testing his material through blog articles and training sessions, he ensures that his insights resonate with his audience and offers tangible value. His upcoming challenge in thought leadership involves generalizing his insights even further, drawing on patterns from physics to provide enlightening "A-ha" moments for managers. As he continues to explore new frontiers in leadership and workplace transformation, Anton Skornyakov's insights promise to inspire and empower leaders across industries. Tune in to this captivating episode for a deep dive into the world of thought leadership and practical strategies for success. Three Key Takeaways: • Effective Communication: Anton Skornyakov's approach to bridging technical language with accessible explanations underscores the importance of active listening and adaptability in communication. By leveraging everyday metaphors, he demonstrates how complex concepts can be made relatable to beginners, fostering understanding and engagement. • Embracing Knowledge Work: Anton highlights the significance of understanding knowledge work in modern-day tasks, where cognitive tasks often outweigh physical labor. Through relatable examples like assembling Ikea shelves, he emphasizes the need for effective management of knowledge work to drive success across various industries. • Audience-Centric Approach: Anton's focus on targeting middle management professionals underscores the value of specificity in thought leadership. By tailoring his insights to meet the needs of this audience segment, he aims to empower leaders with practical strategies for navigating unpredictable projects and fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration.

Welcome to the latest episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership featuring our special guest, Liz Wiseman, CEO of the Wiseman Group and renowned author of bestsellers like "Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter" and "Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work." In this captivating conversation, Liz takes us on a journey into the world of thought leadership, sharing invaluable insights gleaned from her multifaceted career. With a blend of humility and expertise, Liz reflects on her organic approach to thought leadership, emphasizing the importance of going where you can make a meaningful impact. Drawing from her experiences managing learning functions at Oracle University and later transitioning to teaching and advising top organizations worldwide, Liz offers a unique perspective on leadership development and the complexities of managing and leading. Throughout the episode, Liz sheds light on the challenges and nuances of being a speaker and thought leader, from the pressure to deliver value despite external factors to the importance of building lasting relationships beyond the keynote stage. She shares practical strategies for creating real change at an organizational level, drawing from her experiences and her commitment to equipping others with the tools they need for success. In addition to reflecting on her journey as an author and thought leader, Liz offers a sneak peek into her latest research project, exploring the formative experiences in people's work lives and the lasting impact of first bosses. With her signature blend of insight and authenticity, Liz leaves listeners inspired to embrace their own journey of thought leadership and drive positive change in their organizations and beyond. Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation! Three Key Takeaways: * Organic Career Growth: Liz Wiseman's journey into thought leadership underscores the importance of embracing opportunities where one can make a meaningful impact, leading to a diverse and rich career path. * Delivering Value as a Thought Leader: Liz shares insights into the challenges and nuances of being a thought leader and speaker, emphasizing the necessity of consistently delivering value and building lasting relationships beyond the keynote stage. * Empathy in Thought Leadership: Liz Wiseman highlights the importance of empathy in thought leadership, emphasizing the need to understand and empathize with the motivations and expectations of those who invite speakers. By making meaningful connections with clients and understanding their needs, thought leaders can deliver impactful presentations and foster long-term relationships.

In this podcast episode, Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier, author of "The Resilience Plan: A Strategic Approach to Optimizing Your Work Performance and Mental Health," shares insights into resilience and its profound impact on work performance and mental well-being. Dr. Pelletier discusses how her background in psychology and executive coaching led her to focus on resilience as a proactive opportunity for influencing outcomes earlier in individuals' lives. She emphasizes that resilience is not merely a personality trait but a skill that can be developed over time, influenced by factors such as emotional intelligence and optimism. By translating academic research into actionable strategies, Dr. Pelletier aims to empower professionals and leaders to enhance their resilience in practical ways that positively impact their work and personal lives. Drawing from her diverse experiences as an academic, clinical practitioner, executive coach, and business consultant, Dr. Pelletier provides valuable insights into navigating the journey of writing and launching her book. She highlights the importance of creating space and energy for intellectual creativity and resilience-building, ultimately aiming to prevent burnout and enhance thought leadership effectiveness. Looking ahead, Dr. Pelletier hopes that her book will not only inspire strategic thinking and action but also foster greater trust and opportunities for executive coaching and speaking engagements. Through her work, she seeks to empower individuals to embrace resilience as a strategic tool for success and well-being in both professional and personal spheres. Three Key Takeaways: * Resilience as a Strategic Focus: Dr. Pelletier emphasizes the proactive nature of resilience, highlighting its potential for influencing outcomes earlier in individuals' lives. By reframing resilience as a skill that can be developed rather than a fixed personality trait, she encourages listeners to invest strategically in its cultivation. * Translating Research into Action: Dr. Pelletier discusses the challenge of translating academic research on resilience into actionable strategies for practitioners and leaders. Drawing from her diverse background, she offers practical insights and approaches to resilience-building that resonate with her audience's experiences and needs. * The Journey of Writing and Launching a Book: Dr. Pelletier shares her personal journey of writing and launching her book, "The Resilience Plan." From creating space and energy for creativity to navigating the demands of publishing, she provides valuable lessons learned and insights into the process of bringing her ideas to fruition.

Join us in this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership as we sit down with Eric McNulty, an esteemed educator renowned for crafting and delivering transformative educational experiences at prestigious institutions like Harvard and MIT. With a background in communications, Eric's journey from the business to the creative side, and later to the agency side, defies convention, ultimately leading him to a pivotal role as Creative Director at Harvard Business Publishing, and then on to a role as Associate Director of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In this episode, we discover Eric's insights on thought leadership, gained through his immersive experiences in marketing and global conference management. We uncover how his interactions with top executives and thinkers ignited his passion for leadership development, paving the way for his current focus on fostering purpose-driven leaders. Explore the genesis of Eric's thought leadership journey and his strategies for effectively disseminating ideas into the universe. Learn the art of asking probing questions, cultivating curiosity, and nurturing cross-domain knowledge to unlock innovative solutions and spark meaningful conversations. Further, Eric offers insightful advice for those just embarking on their career journey, emphasizing the importance of curiosity, adaptability, and lifelong learning in navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of leadership and professional development. Tune in to uncover Eric McNulty's unique approach to thought leadership and his mission to empower individuals to create positive change in their organizations and beyond. Three Key Takeaways: * Cultivating Curiosity and Cross-Domain Knowledge: Eric McNulty emphasizes the importance of curiosity and cross-domain knowledge in thought leadership. By exploring diverse perspectives and asking insightful questions, individuals can uncover innovative solutions and foster meaningful conversations. * Leadership Development and Lifelong Learning: Eric underscores the significance of leadership development and lifelong learning in today's rapidly evolving world. He encourages individuals to continuously seek satisfaction and joy in their work while adapting to new challenges and acquiring new skills. * Effective Response over Reaction: Eric discusses the importance of distinguishing between reaction and response in leadership. By learning to calibrate pace, accurately assess situations, and forecast outcomes, individuals can avoid knee-jerk reactions and achieve more positive results in challenging situations.

In this enlightening podcast episode, Shanil Ebrahim, Partner and National Life Sciences & Healthcare Consulting Leader at Deloitte takes us on a journey through his professional evolution from bioethics to consulting, shedding light on how he has become a key player in shaping the discourse around the future of healthcare. Ebrahim begins by recounting his early career as a bioethicist, where he grappled with profound issues ranging from pediatric intensive care to end-of-life care, advocating for patients and their families during difficult times. This experience spurred him to pursue further education, obtaining a Master's in Bioethics alongside medical science and later a Ph.D. in clinical epidemiology, all while maintaining a steadfast commitment to serving underserved and vulnerable groups. At Deloitte, Ebrahim has found a platform to amplify his impact, using his insights to identify healthcare challenges before they became apparent to others and advocating for patient-centered care. Over time, his role at Deloitte evolved from transactional problem-solving with clients to becoming a voice within the broader healthcare ecosystem. This evolution was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which provided an opportunity for Ebrahim to foster critical dialogue between private and public sector organizations on a national and global scale. One of Ebrahim's key strengths lies in his ability to convene diverse stakeholders to tackle complex healthcare issues. Whether through formal national roundtables or more informal collaborative think tanks, he brings together a multidisciplinary mix of healthcare leaders, policymakers, and technologists to explore innovative solutions. By leveraging his extensive network and personal relationships, both within Deloitte and externally, Ebrahim ensures that the right voices are at the table to drive meaningful change. However, building trust and fostering open dialogue among participants is no small feat. Ebrahim emphasizes the importance of establishing trust through long-lasting one-on-one relationships, creating an environment where individuals feel comfortable challenging each other's perspectives. This foundation of trust enables Ebrahim to facilitate conversations where participants can explore nuanced viewpoints and strategies, ultimately leading to collective action. Three Key Takeaways: * Complex problems require a diverse range of stakeholders from various backgrounds and fields to come together in an open and trusting manner to seek collaborative solutions. * Trust is a critical part of collaboration. Through long-lasting one-on-one relationships and transparent communication, you can create an environment where participants feel comfortable challenging each other's perspectives and exploring innovative strategies grounded in reality. * Thought Leadership is about being agile and being able to have insights into the changing landscape of your domain of expertise.

In this episode, we welcome Janet Foutty, former Chair and Consulting CEO at Deloitte, and co-author of the insightful book "Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership." Janet shares her journey from the corporate world to becoming a thought leader in women's leadership development. We delve into why, despite her demanding career at Deloitte, Janet chose to invest her time in developing thought leadership. Janet emphasizes that in professional services and consulting, thought leadership is crucial for staying ahead in the market and providing valuable insights to clients. Janet reveals the inspiration behind "Arrive and Thrive" and how a collaboration with Simmons University sparked the idea. Together with Simmons' president, Lynn Perry Wooten, they aimed to explore not just how women arrive in leadership positions, but also how they thrive once they get there. This concept of continual arrival and thriving resonates deeply in the careers of many women, prompting Janet and Lynn to craft a book that goes beyond their own experiences by incorporating insights from interviews with various professionals. We uncover the process of testing ideas for the book, including reaching out to successful clients for their input. Despite initial apprehensions, Janet was overwhelmed by the positive responses, reinforcing the value of meaningful connections in professional circles. With the book now published, Janet reflects on the impact it has had, sparking engaging conversations with women in leadership roles and even influencing discussions with men on leadership principles. The book has become a catalyst for diverse conversations and has expanded Janet's outreach beyond her previous endeavors. Join us as we explore the journey of leadership with Janet Foutty, from arrival to thriving, and discover the insights she's gained along the way. Three Key Takeaways: * Developing thought leadership is necessary to stay ahead of market trends and to provide valuable insights to clients. * Many thought leaders have valuable experiences they could incorporate into a book. However, by including the experiences of others you can validate and elevate your ideas. * Maintaining a professional network of people you trust and who trust you in return can prove valuable far beyond the sales cycle.

In this episode, Kate Bravery, the Global Leader of Advisory, Knowledge, and Insights at Mercer, discusses the importance of thought leadership in today's workforce. Kate, also a co-author of the book "Work Different: 10 Truths for Winning in the People Age," shares insights into her roles at Mercer, including leading the Talent Advisory practice globally. She emphasizes the significance of thought leadership in bringing new perspectives to clients, particularly in the areas of health, wealth, and career. Kate highlights the integration of thought leadership into both internal and external practices, stressing the importance of aligning language and ideas to foster genuine conversations and feedback with clients. She emphasizes the need for compelling thought leadership that resonates with both internal teams and external audiences. Furthermore, Kate provides valuable insights into the setup of thought leadership functions within organizations, emphasizing the need to consider placement, ownership, and measurement of success. Unlike traditional functions, thought leadership can sit in various areas depending on the organization's structure, in Mercer's case, within global business solutions with a reporting line to strategy. This episode offers practical advice for organizations seeking to enhance their thought leadership capabilities and drive innovation in the ever-evolving workforce landscape. Three Key Takeaways: * Thought leadership can serve as a vehicle for challenging traditional perspectives and bringing new insights to clients, ultimately enabling organizations to tackle persistent challenges in innovative ways. * It is important to align language and ideas internally and externally to foster genuine conversations with clients and drive meaningful feedback loops. * When setting up thought leadership functions, consider placement, ownership, and metrics for success.

In this episode of the podcast series on bridging the researcher/practitioner public divide, Dr. Priya Nalkur, president of the Round Table Institute and author of "Stumbling Towards Inclusion: Finding Grace in Imperfect," shares insights on bridging theory and practice. Dr. Nalkur emphasizes the importance of language in communication, advocating for accessibility and authenticity by embracing diverse vocabulary and genres. She encourages individuals to find their unique voice, navigating the discomfort of being different and the fear of not being accepted. Moreover, she discusses the significance of audience engagement and dialogue, highlighting the value of listening to diverse perspectives even amidst resistance. The conversation delves into Dr. Nalkur's upcoming book, which champions the idea that imperfection is inherent to humanity. She likens relationships to icebergs, with much depth hidden beneath the surface, and advocates for vulnerability and courage in acknowledging mistakes and repairing relationships. Furthermore, the framework of adaptive challenge in coaching and organizational work is explored, distinguishing between technical and adaptive challenges. Dr. Nalkur emphasizes the necessity of adapting to change, learning from experiments, and embracing life's lessons to navigate complex challenges effectively. Originally conceived as a companion to workshops, the book expanded in scope due to her publisher's interest in personal details like the origin of her workshop. Dr. Nalkur shares the excitement surrounding ongoing dialogues sparked by the book, even in the pre-order phase. Continuing research has led to the identification of eight common stumbling blocks for leaders, with an accompanying assessment on her website to aid readers in overcoming these obstacles. Through the podcast, Dr. Nalkur provides valuable insights into fostering inclusive communication, embracing imperfection, and navigating adaptive challenges in both personal and professional contexts. Three Key Takeaways: * To bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners we need to be aware of the language we use and how to use inclusive language. * Vulnerability and courage are the keys to owning mistakes, learning from them, and allowing others to do the same. * By listening and understanding diverse perspectives even in the face of resistance you can gain a powerful and new understanding of a situation or problem.

In this podcast episode, we venture into the intricate world of ghostwriting with AJ Harper, a seasoned editor, and publishing strategist who helps authors write transformational books that enable them to build relationships, grow their brands, and make a significant impact on the world. Ghostwriting, a term often shrouded in misconceptions, is dissected to reveal its multifaceted nature, shedding light on the diverse roles a ghostwriter can assume. AJ underscores the importance of understanding that ghostwriting is an umbrella term with no standardized regulations, urging aspiring authors to exercise caution and discernment in their collaborations. Central to the conversation is the collaborative essence of ghostwriting. AJ shares how a skilled ghostwriter can serve as a guiding force, refining the author's concepts and intellectual property while remaining attuned to their vision for the book. Contrary to the misconception that ghostwriters simply pen entire books in isolation, AJ emphasizes that most engagements involve a symbiotic relationship aimed at honing the author's message, understanding their audience, and ensuring the book fulfills its promise. As the conversation unfolds, AJ offers invaluable insights into optimizing outcomes with a ghostwriter. From clarifying book fundamentals to incorporating contractual safeguards such as exit clauses and rewrite provisions, authors are equipped with practical strategies to navigate the ghostwriting process effectively. Furthermore, AJ underscores the paramount importance of long-term book marketing—a facet often overlooked by aspiring authors. By emphasizing the need for sustained promotional efforts spanning several years, AJ empowers authors to harness the full potential of their literary endeavors. In essence, this podcast episode serves as a beacon of guidance for aspiring authors navigating the labyrinth of ghostwriting. Through AJ Harper's illuminating insights and practical wisdom, listeners are empowered to embark on their literary journeys with clarity, purpose, and confidence. Highlights: * Ghostwriting involves collaboration to refine concepts, understand readers, and meet the author's goals, emphasizing clarity in book fundamentals. * Authors must be prepared for long-term marketing efforts, nurturing their books for several years beyond publication to maximize benefits. * It's crucial to ask the right questions and seek referrals when choosing a ghostwriter, ensuring they have relevant experience in the author's genre.

In this podcast episode, Thought Leadership Leverage Founder and CEO Peter Winick and COO Bill Sherman engage in an extensive exploration of the realm of enterprise thought leadership, drawing from their wealth of experience in the field. They dissect the crucial frameworks and models required to seamlessly integrate thought leadership into large organizations. Highlighting the evolving demand for meticulously researched and validated content over mere opinion-based insights, they stress the importance of aligning thought leadership endeavors with the strategic objectives of the enterprise. Moving beyond theoretical discussions, Winick and Sherman explore the practicalities of scaling thought leadership within corporate landscapes. They underscore the fundamental distinction between catering to end-users and economic buyers, emphasizing the imperative of delivering actionable and measurable ideas tailored to meet the diverse needs of large organizations. Their insights shed light on the necessity of adapting thought leadership strategies to accommodate high-volume, low-ticket sales approaches, are crucial for penetrating vast enterprises and ensuring widespread adoption of transformative ideas. The conversation culminates in an exploration of emerging trends reshaping enterprise buying behaviors and presenting new opportunities for thought leaders. From the advent of "train-the-trainer" models to the integration of additional needs into core programs, Winick and Sherman dissect the complexities of these trends and offer strategic insights into navigating integration deals effectively. They underscore the critical importance of aligning thought leadership initiatives with tangible business outcomes, highlighting the need to demonstrate how intellectual property can directly contribute to revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and overall organizational success. Three Key Takeaways: * Thought Leadership has to be validated when taking it to large organizations. More and more companies are seeing the importance of consistency and credibility that are found in validated models. * When scaling our thought leadership for the enterprise level don't get fixated with the end-user. Remember the needs of the economic buyer can be very different and when dealing with the organization the pains of the economic buyer have to be your focus. * Trends in frameworks and models don't change as fast as fashion but you still need to be aware of where the industry is going and move with it.

In this captivating episode, we sit down with Robin Daniels, the Chief Business and Product Officer at LMS365, to embark on a profound exploration of thought leadership in the ever-evolving landscape of technology and software companies. With a career adorned with pivotal roles in various tech enterprises, Robin brings forth a wealth of experience and insights. Throughout the discussion, Robin unveils the pivotal role that thought leadership plays in the trajectory of tech firms. He emphasizes the transcendence of competition beyond mere product features, underscoring the imperative for companies to anchor themselves in a higher purpose. It's this alignment with a broader mission, Robin suggests, that fosters enduring connections with customers and stakeholders. A particularly enlightening segment of the discussion revolves around the role of internal champions in driving organizational success. Robin shares how cultivating a culture of empowerment and trust can transform employees into passionate advocates for the company's vision. These internal evangelists, he argues, are instrumental in securing high-stakes deals and fostering organic growth. Three Key Takeaways: * Companies often compete at the feature or product level, but if you want to stand the test of time you have to stand for something bigger. * Moving from evangelizing to evangelizing through is a massive step, that takes time and trust but can have huge rewards. * People are social media are not looking to be sold to. If you want your thought leadership to catch on find the things you are passionate and knowledgable about and speak to those.

In this episode, we sit down with Russell Kern, a seasoned business leader, entrepreneur, author, and speaker renowned for his expertise in organizational development and the transformative potential of effective coaching. As the founder of Kern and Partners, Russell has dedicated himself to optimizing human capital and empowering high-performance teams. Russell shares his insights on leveraging thought leadership to drive business growth through education, embracing the philosophy of "Give to get." Rather than focusing solely on brand recognition, Russell emphasizes the importance of addressing the immediate problems and challenges faced by his audience. He likens his thought leadership to "pain magnets," aiming to provide relief and solutions to pressing issues. Russell emphasizes the need for practical, actionable content that facilitates skill mastery and drives behavior change. Distinguishing thought leadership and content marketing, Russell highlights the importance of credibility and relevance in thought leadership. He underscores the need for visually engaging, quick-hitting content that captivates and excites the audience, whether it's through traditional mediums or emerging platforms like TikTok. Join us as we explore the strategies behind effective thought leadership and learn how to craft compelling content that resonates with your audience in today's fast-paced digital landscape. Three Key Takeaways: * You can draw in your target audience by creating thought leadership that not only speaks to their problems at the moment but also provides the promise of a solution. * Smaller firms can benefit immensely from investing in thought leadership, allowing them to punch above their weight class. * Effective thought leadership needs to grab the audience's attention. Make sure it is visually compelling and quick-hitting.

In this episode, we sit down with Larry Harding, the Founder & CEO of HSP Group, Inc., a renowned provider of solutions for companies venturing into the global expansion market. Larry sheds light on the complexities and surprises that often accompany international expansion efforts. Larry explains that many clients underestimate the challenges of global expansion, emphasizing the mantra "you don't know what you don't know." HSP Group assists companies in managing various aspects of their global footprint, from finance and accounting to legal compliance and human resources. Despite clients' initial interest in expanding overseas, they often come to realize the intricacies involved and the need for expert guidance. Drawing from his own experiences, Larry discusses the genesis of HSP Group. Frustrated by the inefficiencies and challenges faced during his tenure as a finance professional overseeing international expansions, Larry recognized the necessity for a dedicated company to address these issues comprehensively. Targeting fast-growing companies lacking infrastructure or experience, HSP Group aims to be a trusted resource for CFOs and venture capitalists navigating global expansion. Larry emphasizes the importance of thought leadership and establishing credibility within the industry. Through strategic partnerships with legal and financial professionals and by utilizing their own services internally, HSP Group builds trust and demonstrates its expertise in managing global operations. Join us as we delve into the complexities of global expansion and the crucial role of education and expertise in ensuring success.

Eric Siegel is a seasoned consultant with more than twenty years of experience with machine learning. In today's podcast, Eric shares insights from his best-selling book, "Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die," and his second book, "The AI Playbook." Having taught AI and machine learning at Columbia, he expresses frustration at the underutilization of machine learning. His mission with "The AI Playbook" is to bridge the gap between data scientists and business professionals, emphasizing the need for a customized process, discipline, and playbook for successful machine learning projects. The conversation delves into the misconception surrounding AI and machine learning, emphasizing the importance of planning for business outcomes and operational changes from the project's inception. The guest stresses that the value of AI lies not in its cool factor but in successful deployment. Discussing his second book, he reflects a focus on preorders and an emphasis on podcasts, he shares his strategy for getting the book into the hands of Fortune 500 stakeholders vested in machine learning success. Tune in for an insightful journey into the world of predictive analytics, AI deployment, and the passion that fuels success in the realm of thought leadership. Three Key Takeaways: · Business professionals must gain some technical knowledge to establish a standardized practice for machine learning. · Understand the use case – what is predicted and how it's acted upon are the cornerstone of driving value in machine learning projects. · AI and machine learning are powerful tools but don't get lost in the wonder of them. Stay focused on what you need them to do for you.

Organizations often talk about having a culture of innovation. But what does that look like? To explore innovation and how to achieve transformative breakthroughs I've invited Kim Christfort to join me. Kim is the Chief Innovation Leader and National Managing Director of Deloitte Greenhouse Experience, where they work to spark new thinking, accelerate decision-making, and build long-term business development. Kim shares how her background in theatre and science gave her a love for problem-solving and interacting with people, but it wasn't until she created her position at Deloitte for herself that she could fully incorporate her creative side. The Deloitte Greenhouse Experience is not just a space, it is an experience, a stage where Kim can set the environment to diagnose what is holding the group back and activate the brain through immersion to create momentum and opportunity to break through the barriers that are holding you back. For ten years Kim and her team have been working with people, teams, and leaders to achieve breakthroughs but have never codified or packaged the research and data they have been doing. This was the catalyst for Kim's book The Breakthrough Manifesto which acts as a field guide for leaders and organizations to act, join the movement, and achieve breakthroughs that can fundamentally shift the way an organization thinks and operates. Three Key Takeaways: · A good metric for thought leadership is repeat usage. If people continue to come back time and again, investing their time and money they must be seeing value from it. · Moments are all around us. They are opportunities. Thought leadership can have a huge role in making those opportunities visible to clients. · Thought leadership that can become a movement is powerful. Those who believe in your ideas will become your biggest and loudest champions.

When complex topics come up, thought leaders typically have a list of usual suspects we can turn to for information. However, by continually going to these same sources you might become repetitive and miss out on new and important perspectives. To explore why these old habits can be detrimental and how we can overcome our presets I've invited Watchen Nyanue Hampton to join me. Watchen is the Founder and CEO of I Choose the Ladder, a boutique consulting firm in Chicago that does work at the intersection of talent culture and strategy. Watchen starts us off by discussing how our defaults could be drowning out other voices and perspectives that could potentially be advantageous to your business. Further, she shares how breaking that cycle can only happen with conscious and thoughtful effort. Finding new voices that want to step into the spotlight can be difficult. Watchen explains how finding them can only happen by getting to know people as people, by humanizing the way we interact with others in our personal and professional spaces. Asking questions and being genuinely interested in others can help them feel seen and heard, which will have a massive impact on how they work and the pride they feel. Watchen shows how elevating others in thought leadership and using your own power to share the spotlight can be good for retention, succession planning, and reaching wider audiences through wider conversations that you otherwise might never have been aware of. Three Key Takeaways: · If you are in a leadership role it is your job to know the people who you are leading. · Be intentional about the way you craft your life and your career. Always know that you have a choice. · If you are not part of the community and are aware of the conversations that are going on, you are never going to think about engaging them.

AI is a hot topic right now, but many don't fully understand the ramifications. How do you present data sets and explainable AI to the average person? Today we sit down with Keith Goode, the Vice President of Services at ZeroedIn Technologies which provides HR solutions by combining people data with business data for one source of truth. Our conversation begins by getting a sense of how complex ideas like AI can be used by people who are not familiar with it. Keith shares how he identifies the business issue or concern at hand and that AI could be useful to help solve those problems. From there they seek the right data to answer the questions and then qualify that information by looking at historical data, then aggregating it together to generate an AI model that can predict outcomes based on the predetermined traits. Building a data set is a crucial part of creating an accurate AI model. Keith explains how they use a template that has key factors that have been used in the past coupled with various data elements that are unique and important to the client. Keith continues by explaining how the model can be tested and updated to make the model more accurate. If you want a better understanding of AI in terms everyone can understand you'll want to tune into this episode. Three Key Takeaways: · If an idea is not explainable, then it is also not actionable. · AI models are not a one-and-done solution. You need to update and retrain them to ensure relevance and effectiveness. · AI models allow for a deeper and more complex dimension of examination of complex topics.

Why do we do what we do and buy what we buy?What invisible forces drive those actions - and how can they be seen? Today our guest is Marcus Collins an award-winning marketer and culture translator. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Ross School of Business and an award-winning author. His newest book is For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be. Marcus shares how there is no greater external force more influential to human behavior than culture! However, if you ask ten people what culture is you'll get a different answer each time. Marcus explains that you must understand who you are, how you see the world, and what you believe if you are going to create a coherent and positive culture. Marcus's first solo book For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be came from his exploration of social sciences to understand better who we are as people and what the underlying physics of why we take the actions we do. Marcus states that as a marketer we have to gain that understanding to get others to adopt the behavior we are promoting. While launching the book Marcus chose to eat his own dog food, taking the same approach to his book launch as he would launch a client's product. Building out from understanding the culture the book represents he reached out to former students who embraced the thinking he taught, enlisting them to boost the signal of the book on launch day. By doing this he created a following of true believers willing to evangelize his book and ideas! Marcus shares smart advice for anyone who feels their culture is lacking clarity or for those who struggle to truly connect to their target audience. Three Key Takeaways: · There is no external force more influential to human behavior than culture. · It's about getting your thinking in the hands and minds of more people. · If you can activate people with shared convictions, then those people will evangelize on your behalf.

Should you try to make your thought leadership relevant to everyone? Or, is being focused the answer? To examine the effectiveness of "going narrow" with your thought leadership, I've invited David G Ewing to join me. David is a trailblazer in customer experience innovation, and the CEO of Motiv, the world's largest Oracle CX exclusive partner allowing clients to manage their customer experience (CX) through every step of their journey. David shares how he uses thought leadership to differentiate and drive business, by narrowly focusing on customer experiences using technology from a single vendor. This has allowed him to tackle any challenges a customer might bring his way. David explains that a narrow focus allows him to find the exact target customer which is a match made in heaven for both sides. With thought leadership content focused directly on their pain points the customer knows from the outset the partnership is a good fit. Part of finding that focus came from coming up with a mission and motive. David trimmed that down to a single word "Growth." Having a one-word mission made it possible to have a lot of creativity while remaining focused. David shares excellent advice for going deep for elevated relevancy! Three Key Takeaways: · The more focused you are the more useful you are despite being relevant to a smaller group of people. · Having a good and clear mission statement can allow you to stay focused on your vision. · It's never too early to start thought leadership.

In today's episode, we showcase some of the best guests from our Organizational Thought Leadership series. We think their insights will be as useful this year as it was last! Lynette Jackson is the Head of Communications at Siemens. She shares how thought leadership can act as an umbrella for your brand, bringing all the various disciplines of communication together under it, enabling them to move in the same direction with purpose! Kathy Risch is Senior Vice President, Shopper Insights & Thought Leadership at Acosta. She takes us inside what it takes to understand how and why people buy. She shares how it goes beyond the usefulness of a product and dives into the impact the emotion a product or service can tap into while speaking to an underlying need or frustration in the consumer's life. Kasey Lobaugh is the Chief Futurist for the Consumer Industry and Principal at Deloitte Consulting, LLP. He shares how the research they did over a year is more than a white paper, it's a platform! Kasey explains how they can shape the thinking of the future of not only Deloitte but their entire industry by engaging with hundreds of people inside and outside the company. He shares how they approached people from diverse backgrounds to get a better picture of the future by seeing it through many unique perspectives. Three Key Takeaways: · Having the ability to create content that speaks to an audience on their level, be it introductory or expert is the key to reaching a wider audience. · Connecting your product or service with the consumer's insights is how you hit the sweet spot. · When engaging others on large scale research you need to allow them to engage with and shape the content.

As we ring in the New Year it is always a good idea to take a moment and reflect on the past year. We continue our tradition of doing so by providing a compilation from a few guests who provided timeless advice. Jenna Fisher is the Co-lead of Global Financial Officer Practice at Russell Reynolds Associates and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author with a new book To the Top: How Women in Corporate Leadership Are Rewriting the Rules for Success. In this conversation, Jenna shares how she interviewed dozens of women who provided inspirational and practical stories that she used in her book. In addition, she discusses the synergy the book has with her business and what she learned in the process of writing. Mark Miller, is the Vice President of High Performance Leadership, Chick-fil-A Inc. and author of Culture Rules: The Leader's Guide to Creating the Ultimate Competitive Advantage. Mark gives insight into being an embedded research house within Chick-fil-A and how pragmatism and leadership are the keys to balancing the scales between the two. Lily Zheng is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion speaker, strategist, and organizational consultant. Recently they wrote DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right. Lily discusses the ebb and flow of DEI in the workplace and how it is something that is needed all the time not just when things go wrong. Jane Hanson is an Emmy Award winning Journalist with thirty years of coaching experience helping people communicate more clearly and efficiently. Jane shares what thought leadership means to her and how the heart of soul of it is communication. She discusses knowing your purpose and provides tips and advice for communicating in mediums you might not excel at. Three Key Takeaways: · While doing research for a book or any thought leadership, reaching out to a diverse audience can help give you a wider and more balanced perspective. · Everything rises and falls with leadership. · As a thought leader your purpose needs to be getting the important information you have out into the world for others to hear and use

Thought leaders come from a wide variety of backgrounds and skills. Each unique path leads to inspiration, solutions, and frameworks that can reach niche groups on a personal level. Selena Rezvani is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and consultant on leadership. Her newest book, a Wall Street Journal bestseller "Quick Confidence: Be Authentic, Boost Connections, and Make Bold Bets on Yourself" is a guide for overcoming the nine most common obstacles that stand in the way of building authentic confidence. Selena shares how her journey in thought leadership started while she was a young management consultant whose boss created a policy that all consultants would have to write and present at conferences twice a year. While incredulous at first she was also thrilled at the challenge and agency the opportunity presented. That push into thought leadership resulted in seeking an MBA to better speak to her audience. Selena shares how during her MBA program she interviewed high performing C-suite level women to discover the commonalities and hardships they face. The result of these interviews came together as her first book The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won't Learn in Business School and led to continued relationships with many of the women interviewed and Selena breaking out on her own to further her thought leadership work. Selena shares how her business continued to grow adding speaking, learning to value herself and the years of previous research that were required to create engaging and actionable speaking engagements. Selena shares wonderful advice for speakers, authors, leaders, and budding thought leaders on how to create content, build relationships, and measure your own success and self worth. Three Key Takeaways: · Great things happen when you bring the frameworks and thinking of one discipline into another that might not typically be blended. · You have to value yourself. You have to own your authority. Ask for what you need. Don't settle. · The success or failure of an experiment is not a measurement of your success or worth. You will either win or you'll learn.

You can find an audience for your thought leadership on almost any social media platform. Time is the ultimate commodity - so, how do you break through the noise to get your audience's attention? Today's guest has a keen understanding of audience, message, and modality! Robert Glazer is the best-selling author of Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others, a keynote speaker, award-winning executive, and host of The Elevate podcast. Our conversation starts by discussing creating content and discovering what the audience is seeking. Robert shares how experimentation is required, but one trick for content creation is writing an article on anything you've been asked about five times. This shows that the topic is a pain point to many and allows you to point back to the article as something you've previously dealt with, not something you are tackling at the moment. Furthermore, Robert tells us why you have to create content that is more than a sales pitch. By creating content and opportunities that are mutually beneficial you increase the odds of reaching your audience. In addition, we look at the medium for thought leadership Robert explains that you need to understand the reason for tackling the platform you are. Many platforms like podcasting reward longevity, so digging in and preparing to stick it out through the crickets is required to find success down the road. He also discusses picking one channel and learning to excel at it. Once you've built an audience there, you can expand to other platforms. Three Key Takeaways: · Pick a strategy, pick a tone, and pick a channel. Learn to do that one channel well before moving on to another. · Success of a platform can take on various looks. From increasing brand awareness, creating new relationships, or by establishing yourself as an expert in your field. · If you want to make something go viral, make something worth sharing.

Can you spot a good idea? And when you do, how do you successfully find its best audience? These are just two questions we examine with today's guest, Ward Kampf. Ward is the President of Northwood Retail, which leases, manages, and markets a portfolio of over five million square feet of mixed use and community properties. With retail facing constant technological changes, leaders are always trying to discover the next frontier. Ward shares with us the exciting way content and context come together to impact a potential consumer. Part of creating that impact involves staying relevant, fresh, and - if possible - first to market. Searching for the next frontier means having to constantly examine new ideas. Ward explains why we need to step back, absorb the idea, and learn about it. Only then can you create a vision, strategy, and execution that can bring success. We also discuss building relationships. Again, retail and thought leadership involve creating relationships based on trust, which means not always seeking to make a sale. Ward shares how some of his best relationships took years to develop before any business transactions took place, but that time invested has paid off in the long run. Today's episode is a great example of how thought leadership can have an impact on a wide variety of industries - around the world! Three Key Takeaways: · You have to have an open mind and a want to listen and learn. It's an evolve-or-die environment. You can't afford to become irrelevant or stale. · Financial and human resources are not infinite. Go where you can be your most productive with the resources you have. · It can take years to develop a business partnership. Investing time can pay off down the road when you are trying to sell a better experience and partnership instead of just a product.

It can be easy to think "I'm just not a confident person" But confidence isn't something you have to be born with. Like any other skill, you can practice behaviors to grow that skill. Our guest today is Emily Jaenson, a keynote speaker, host of the hit podcast Leadership is Female, and co-founder of The Assist Group a collective of experienced sports professionals ready to step in and provide sales, marketing & leadership consulting. Emily has an impressive resume in sports and thought leadership, but at one time she was too shy to even order a pizza. She shares her journey leaving her small town to attend university where she realized she needed to level up and that could only be accomplished with confidence! She pushed through one uncomfortable situation after another taking them as opportunities to grow and even take on leadership roles helping others grow. One way Emily has been able to help others grow is with her TEDx talk "Six behaviors to increase your confidence" which has been viewed more than 3 million times. Emily discusses how the TEDx talk was the culmination of years of knowledge, experience, and interviews from her podcast distilled into an incredibly impactful twelve-minute talk. The talk was so impactful that corporations began to reach out to her to deliver that message to their employees. We learn how she took this opportunity to grow her business, going on the offense creating a website, networking, and developing a pitch to take her content to the world instead of waiting for it to come to her. We wrap up our conversation with Emily giving examples from her career on the behaviors others can practice to get through tough times, expand their comfort zone, and ultimately grow their confidence! Three Key Takeaways: · Once you have content out in the world you can't sit and wait for the clients to come to you. You need to network and take the content to the people who need it most. · People tend to believe you are born with confidence or you're not. However, confidence is a skill. It can be taught and learned. · Confidence is competence. And you gain competence through curiosity.

When the time comes to hire someone new, how can you tell if you have the right candidate? Plenty of thought leaders can tell you that even the best programs often have knowledge gaps, between what is learned in school and what it takes to do a job from day to day. Our guest today is William Vanderbloemen. William's been a senior pastor for 15 years, and comes from a strong HR background at Fortune 200 companies. He is the founder of the Vanderbloemen Search Group, helping churches, schools, nonprofits, family offices, and values-based businesses find key staff, and also the author of Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook, the go-to guide for creating a pastoral succession plan. William shares his journey into thought leadership, starting with his blog on how to build, run, and maintain a great team. As his business expanded, he instituted a content quota for everyone in the business, literally making thought leadership a companywide responsibility. With so many contributors to the content pool, it would be easy to get off track. William describes how they've created detailed "personas" (also called "avatars") to guide their marketing. These "personas" are clearly defined, allowing them to address specific, identifiable pain points. Additionally, William shares how these personas are regularly updated to keep up with the changing world. Finally, William discusses his book Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook, which targets a micro-niche audience but has sold 60000 copies and secured him a spot as the go-to guy when churches are seeking a succession plan. William shares how the book is full of quantitative data with qualitative stories, giving data-driven facts instead of opinions. This conversation demonstrates how you can find great success by getting super focused on your audience and how you can accomplish that. Three Key Takeaways: · If you create target avatars to guide content creation, update them often – and be sure to know their current challenges! · Content-based marketing and thought-based leadership that doesn't come from the top it's not going to work in the organization. · Clickbait might get immediate attention, but thought leadership earns you a loyal following!

Thought leaders know that a sharp eye is the best tool for keeping a sharp mind. In fact, others see abilities in us long before we see them in ourselves, and can support us as we blossom into a new role or skill. Our guest today has found herself asking "Who me?" and "Why me?" at almost every step of her incredible career. Deborah Levine is the Founder and Editor of the American Diversity Report, whose mission is to boost the effort to repair the world and inspire fellow diversity, equity, and inclusion change makers with the resources they need. Deborah shares how her history weaves together seemingly unrelated skills and experiences that take her from being the only Jewish girl in her community in Bermuda, to unexpectedly being put in charge of inter religious affairs at the American Jewish Committee, and eventually becoming an award-winning screen writer and producer! One of the threads that is common through most of her experience is others offering aid to move her career and thought leadership forward, eventually allowing Deborah to learn and step up to the task on her own. Deborah shares real life experiences of getting help and learning to grow into new roles that she might have thought were impossible for her to accomplish. This episode is full of stories and antidotes that are sure to inspire anyone who has been asked to step up to the plate and thought "Why me?" Three Key Takeaways: · When asked to do something, take the opportunity that is presented. Don't say no because you aren't sure how to do it. Take the time to learn and grow. · Part of being a thought leader is encouraging and creating spaces for conversations that will have meaning and value. · Being a thought leader means being in a constant state of evolution of who you are.

Before anyone shares their ideas, feedback, or concerns they tend to ask themselves two questions: Am I safe to speak? And is it worth it? If the answer to either of these questions is no, odds are they will stay silent. So how can leaders, teams, and organizations facilitate an environment where speaking up is celebrated and not ignored or punished? Our guest today is Stephen "Shed" Shedletzky, a speaker, leadership coach and advisor who is using his new book Speak-Up Culture: When Leaders Truly Listen, People Step Up to help create a culture where people feel safe and supported to take part in and start conversations. Shed shares how his work with Simon Sinek laid the groundwork for developing his own content that focused on two areas that stood out to him over his years of work: Psychological safety and living your message. We examine what Psychological safety and Speak-Up Culture mean to Shed and how he is bringing these elements to individual's, teams, and organizations. In addition we discuss how psychological safety still comes with accountability, which is best achieved by mutually established agreements that bring what is best for both employee and employer to the front. Three Key Takeaways: · Business books are written for two reasons. It's something you are so good at you want to share that knowledge. Or you are so bad at it that you need to write a book to fix it. · Whatever you message is you have to live it inside and outside of your organization. If you talk the talk, but fail to walk the walk people will see right through you. · When people don't feel like speaking up will have an effect they become apathetic. When they don't feel safe they stay silent. Creating an environment where employees can speak and be heard can create a happier and higher functioning atmosphere.

The journey of a thought leader often involves moving from being a subject matter expert inside the house, going from room to room sharpening various skills, to eventually leaving the house and applying all of those skills to the greater neighborhood you've always lived in. Kon Apostolopoulos is the Founder and CEO of Fresh Biz Solutions. He's been helping businesses achieve strategic goals for more than 20 years by preparing people for the right leadership roles. In addition, Kon is the co-author of 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide to Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics & Other Disasters, a guide to help readers through crisis both personal and global. Kon takes us through a series of milestones, including publishing his first book, having to take that material to scale, and finding success that had his audience asking new questions — forcing him to continually expand his thinking and problem-solving. We explore the way thought leadership needs to move the audience further along than they are. Kon explains how this often means having to speak in simplified terms that allow you to break through both ego and preconceived notions. We learn how this can only be accomplished by understanding your audience, where they are, and where they need you to take them. Three Key Takeaways: · There are two parts to thought leadership. The idea and thought part. And the action and external part. They are symbiotic and necessary to each other to create content that is actionable. · Thought leadership needs to move the audience further along than they are. The conversation doesn't have to go from 1 - 100, but you have to move the audience at least from 1 to 2 and beyond. · Sometimes the best way to break through adult egos and preconceived notions is to present complex ideas in simple ways.

Topics like climate change can be a hot button issue in discussions. So how can you deliver thought leadership on controversial topics without disengaging various portions of your audience? In order to thread that difficult needle, I've invited Nora DePalma to join me. Nora is the CEO of Dialogue, a modern PR firm that builds value for organizations seeking to advance climate solutions. Nora starts the conversation by sharing how discussing climate solutions instead of climate change helps to shape the conversation, allowing them to start a dialogue without turning off certain parties that might be needed in order to meet their goals. Once your audience is open to hearing what you have to say you'll need to be prepared for what comes next. Nora explains how you need to tie activity to business outcomes and understand what action you want them to take next, moving them deeper into your content but not necessarily leading them into a sales funnel. She shares why not every call to action has to lead to sales and why education and relationship building can be as powerful and lead to sales in other ways. Nora provides great advice and examples of how to deliver complex thought leadership that tactfully opens the door to deeper, more meaningful conversations. Three Key Takeaways: · In addition to understanding your audience and shaping the conversation you have to deliver your ideas with authenticity and passion. Otherwise, they are likely to tune out. · Not all calls to action have to lead into the sales funnel. They can be a call to education, or to further a relationship. · You have to earn people's attention. That is how you build trust and sustain relationships.

A lot of thought leaders have written books, eager to get their insights out into the world. Yet many start the task without having a well-defined plan for what comes next! Our guest today has literally written the book on writing thought leadership books! "Build a Better Business Book: How to Plan, Write and Promote a Book That Matters" is the work of the amazing Josh Bernoff, and we can't think of a better person to help nonfiction authors succeed. In order to help authors find success, they first have to understand what that means to them. Josh explains how success can look differently to each author and often is unrelated to the quantity of books sold. Success can take the form of launching a speaking career, generating leads, or purely having a book that makes you the authority in your field. Once you know what sort of success you want, you'll need to plan beyond the book. Josh shares how many authors don't look beyond the launch of their book and become disappointed when nothing happens. However, those that properly promote their book, and have scalable plans in place for after the book is launched, can take their business to the next level. If you have an idea for a book, but you're not sure if it checks the boxes of "big, right, and new," then this episode will guide you on your journey. Three Key Takeaways: · For authors the success of a book is typically not measured in sales but in the additional business generated from the book. · Before you publish a book have a plan to define yourself beyond the book. · Tradition, hybrid, and self-publishing all have pros and cons. You have to understand the needs of your book to find the right fit.

Could poor leadership have a direct impact on workers' insurance claims? Today, we go outside the box by discussing insurance with Clint Tripodi. Clint is a National Practice Leader for The Liberty Company where they are changing the way business leaders look at and think about insurance - through the use of thought leadership. While insurance is often thought of as "mundane," Clint shares what his company found when they tracked leadership's impact on workplace culture, and why they are looking to find the root issues, in order to mitigate risks downstream. Through data analytics, Clint is able to see where claims have an impact, and then go directly to the root of the problem, which is often a lack of leadership. Clint uses data analytics to show the way poor leadership has an effect on workers' compensation claims as well as employee retention, and ultimately, ROI. Clint helps us understand how the culture of wellness at Liberty is being spread to their clients through thought leadership that sets them apart from and above the competition! Three Key Takeaways: · Culture is a strategic tool and insurance can help you drive that strategy. · When working in a highly commoditized market you have to position yourself as a business partner, not just a solution. · Data analytics can help to identify problems so that you can go upstream and fix them at the source.

If Generative AI is fed all writing on the internet, then when you ask it a question, it can give you a good answer. Or at least an answer that is good enough. For this reason, good enough is no longer good enough. To discern the role Generative AI can play on the future of thought leadership I've invited Mahan Tavakoli to join me. Mahan is the CEO of Strategic Leadership Ventures which helps people become the sort of leader people want to follow. He is also the host of the Partnering Leadership where you can learn the leadership journeys of successful CEOs and the top global thought leaders. Our conversation with Mahan starts with getting an understanding of both generative AI and what we would call good ideas. From there we explore how asking the right questions is the secret to getting useful knowledge out of either. While asking the right questions of AI can allows us a great understanding of the vast amount of data in our organizations, the right questions of an idea can discover the power of differentiation and niches. If you're looking to expand your use or understanding of AI and how we can unlock the power of our ideas this is a great episode for you. Three Key Takeaways: · Part of thought leadership is marrying the ideas of others to see new patterns. · When we think we know the answer, we don't ask the simple fundamental questions that can unveil new insights. · The power comes from the differentiation and the niches. Rather than the belief that you need to go wide.

Moving from internal thought leadership to being a solo act means having to take on a lot of new roles. Marketing, research, and publishing all fall on your shoulders now. Are you prepared? Today our guest is Dan Pontefract, who, after a long prosperous career at companies like Telus, struck out on his own as a leadership strategist, change expert, keynote speaker, and award-winning author. His fifth book Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team that Flourishes will be released in November of 2023. Dan shares his journey from working at Telus as Chief Learning Officer, using the company as a lab with the ability to real-time test ideas to teaching the models he helped create internally, to external companies guiding others through leadership development and culture change. As an author much has changed over the ten years since his first book was published. Dan shares his experience both with untrustworthy and fantastic partners in publishing. In addition, he explains why you should be ready to market the book yourself, the big differences between self, hybrid, and traditional publishing! If you are just getting started or about to break out from corporate thought leadership, Dan provides valuable advice for thought leaders at any stage! Three Key Takeaways: · When doing market research look at others in your sphere at your level. Then look at those above you and determine what sets them apart. What can you learn from what they are doing? · Be continually and continuously adding to your body of work. · Thought leadership can take a product that might not land you a meeting, and open the door to a more interesting conversation.

What happens when the tools we use to analyze and take control of our environments become the cause of our destruction? Is your company using the tools they have at their disposal? Or are the tools using you? Our guest today is Don Schmincke an explorer, researcher, and partner with The Pacific Institute. He is also the author of Winners and Losers: Entrepreneurial Lessons from 30,000 CEOs on How to Come Out on Top, which teaches entrepreneurs how to win powerfully! Our conversation begins with Don telling us how he went from almost dropping out of high school, to learning technology and ultimately strategy and leadership. While working at Johns Hopkins he began to find an astonishingly high failure rate in management theory – and he knew he could help. Don goes on to explain the seduction of tools. Why we believe they can save us, allowing us to analyze and control our environments. And how we can easily fall to letting the tools use us because without altering human decision making through true transition, the tools won't change the choices we make. With such a high failure rate many might think diving into the entrepreneurial pool would be foolhardy. However, Don gives us hope by telling us about losing powerfully – taking the loss and learning from it, picking ourselves up and becoming stronger from it. Three Key Takeaways: · It doesn't matter how good your theory is if it doesn't have a measurable impact. · We get seduced by our tools because we think they will save us. But without changing how we think the tools won't change the outcome. · Formulation without execution is just a good idea on a shelf.

How does a thought leader get an audience to take notice, remember, and actively use the content you are putting out? To get a firm grasp of exactly what engagement means and how to get your audience there, I've invited Scott Gould to join me. Scott is a consultant, speaker, and author of The Shape of Engagement: The Art of Building Enduring Connections with Your Customers, Employees, and Communities. Our conversation begins with Scott not only defining what engagement is but how he has broken out into three types. Head, Hands, and Heart engagement – while each is very different, we learn how they act as building blocks on each other to create deeper connections between you, your idea, and your audience. A big part of having an audience become engaged is presenting an idea that is easy to understand and remember. Scott shares his process for distilling an idea down to the essentials, which sometimes means blowing the idea up to something huge first! In this episode Scott offers great insight for taking ideas from brainstorm to living at the heart of an audience! Three Key Takeaways: · Properly defining the topic you want your thought leadership to center around is one of the biggest jobs that you have. · The name of an idea is incredibly important. People engage with ideas when it is easy to remember the essence of that idea. · Sharpening ideas to the finest point often involves discarding ideas that you like but don't connect with your audience.

The past few years have seen shake-ups in almost every aspect of thought leadership. Big challenges can - and have - pushed a lot of people out of the field. But what some call a "big challenge" is everyday fare to a fighter pilot. Our guest today is Christian " Boo" Boucousis, a former fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force. He's an inspirational keynote speaker, author, and CEO of Afterburner; an org that helps corporate teams execute with the same precision and accuracy as elite pilots. After Boo's Air Force career ended he reinvented himself numerous times by transforming his ways of thinking and working using the skills he acquired as a fighter pilot. This eventually led to the purchase of Afterburner a globally connected group of current and former fighter pilots, U.S. Navy Seals, and other elite military professionals that use the discipline and strategy developed in their previous careers to enable organizations to achieve new levels of success. Much of the Afterburner experience came from in-person speaking, which instantly became impossible when COVID shut the world down. Boo, shares how he led his company through the turbulent time, moving to virtual mediums to deliver immersive movie-quality experiences. As an author and speaker, Boo is keenly aware that audiences have a shrinking attention span. He shares advice for understanding the differences between information, knowledge, and wisdom – and how to walk your audience through those phases over various modalities using humor and emotion to keep the audience's attention. If you are in need of advice for making your content soar, this episode is the one for you. Three Key Takeaways: · As a thought leader you should be infinitely curious. Not just about your domain but about how you communicate that information. · You need to be versatile with your content. Delivering important and valuable information but also including humor and things that maintain the audience's attention. · We remember what we feel more than we remember what we see or hear. That is why you have to evoke an emotion that is connected to the message.

Death is a natural part of life, but our ideas and dreams can live beyond us - and be an inspiration for generations to come. Today, our guest is a dear friend and mentor, Dr. Mark Goulston. During his long career, Mark moved from being a psychiatrist and FBI hostage negotiator to being one of the most highly regarded coaches and keynote speakers in the business. He helps companies and individuals gain deeper self-awareness, and grow as leaders. Now Mark is facing his most difficult challenge yet. Having been diagnosed with a condition that leads to acute myeloid leukemia, Mark is learning not only to accept his diagnosis, but also, how to walk the road ahead with grace. More, Mark is sharing that knowledge, and the lessons he's learned through life experience, to help others. Mark discusses how he is able to have a good death because he has lived a good life. But what does a good life look like? Mark shares how he is focusing on the things that really matter in life, the need to hire and connect with people that share compatible values, and how his life as a psychiatrist has translated to corporate leadership. In this frank and open conversation Mark gives advice for life, death, and leadership. It's a must-experience episode that celebrates life, and how our journey can help others - even generations after we have passed on.

Part of thought leadership is making the invisible, visible. When that happens, it can challenge beliefs and make people uncomfortable and defensive. So, how can you break through feelings, and make change deeply significant to that future? Our guest today is Dr. Suzanne Wertheim, the Founder, and CEO of Worthwhile Research & Consulting, where she uses her expertise to improve hiring, organizational culture, engagement and retention. She is also the author of The Inclusive Language Field Guide: 6 Simple Principles for Avoiding Painful Mistakes and Communicating Respectfully, which is filled with real-world examples and exercise that can help boost your inclusive language skills. As a linguistic anthropologist, Dr. Wertheim has been researching and studying the intersection of language, power and culture for decades. She shares how linguistics, like thought leadership, is about recognizing patterns. Accomplishing this can be a difficult task, as people realize they might not be as inclusive as they had believed. Suzanne explains what inclusive language is and why it matters. We learn how language is social action and the building blocks of how we create, maintain, and end relationships. She shares the six principles found in her book that can be worked on in order to better our own use of inclusive language. In addition she gives real life examples of how the wrong wording can cause a deal to go south, as well as how inclusive language can repair that damage. If you want a better understanding of inclusive language as well as how you can move from being able to identify those problems to acting differently this is a must listen episode. Three Key Takeaways: · Just because something is simple to describe does not mean it is easy or effortless to implement. · Inclusive language is like learning any new language. It takes time and practice to become good at seeing it and changing behavior. · A lack of inclusive language can force great employees to leave for greener pastures. This is one of the many reasons leaders need a better understanding of what is acceptable language.

Thought leaders are often torn between scale and depth.Scale allows you to reach a large audience, while depth allows you to have massive impact. So, where's the happy medium? Today's guest is Jennifer Dulski, the CEO and founder at Rising Team which blends experience and science to help leaders ensure people on their teams feel valued, motivated, and connected. In addition, she is the bestselling author of "Purposeful: Are You A Manager or A Movement Starter?" The book provides invaluable resources for leaders who want to step up and make a difference. Jennifer has had a number of roles in her career from entrepreneur for a non-profit start-up, high school teacher, and executive leadership roles at Facebook, Google, and Yahoo. We learn how all of these roles have given her the experience to take her passion for creating a happy and successful high-performing team to scale using technology. Often thought leaders believe they have to stick to a single domain, but Jennifer shares how her varied career has allowed her to adjust, grow, and change her domain expertise over time as her own experience has developed through both success and mistakes in the field. Our conversation wraps up by discussing putting content into various modalities and how using LinkedIn, being an educator, and writing a book all play together. Jennifer explains how the book and book talks helped to tighten up her content and give her credibility while bite-sized portions of that content go out on LinkedIn to have larger engagements with her audience. Jennifer shares useful information on taking ideas to scale and leveraging a book to create a deep impact on your audience. Three Key Takeaways: · You don't have to be a thought leader in only one domain. You can grow your thought leadership in multiple domains as your experience grows. · Having successes and mistakes are both part of the thought leadership journey. · A book can help you solidify your ideas and present them in the clearest way, which you can then build additional product offerings.

How do you get people to think about new ideas?And then, how do you move your audience from thinking - to buying? To examine how ideas go from brainstorming to industry-changing, I've invited Pete O'Heeron to join me for today's podcast. Pete is the Founder and CEO of FibroBiologics, a leading biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing fibroblast cell-based therapies. We kick the conversation off discussing how Fibroblast has gone from a few peer reviewed papers a year to dozens each week in the span of a mere eight years. Pete helps us understand exactly what fibroblast cells are and why the amount of interest and important research for them has spiked. Not only is research into fibroblast cells new but the work Pete is doing at FibroBiologics is going in directions no one else is. Pete discusses why they are doing work no one else is and how the research and science are the mechanics that steer the direction of the company. Working on such new and cutting edge ideas often means having to convert people from no, to yes. Pete shares how their scientific discovery board is made up of world leaders in stem cell research, which gives the work they do a great deal of credibility. This creates an opportunity to start conversations that spark interest in what the company is doing and allows the science to sell itself as people dig into these new ideas. Pete offers great insight into how to take new niche ideas from prototype to market and have conversations that draws your audience in. Three Key Takeaways: · Allowing research and science to dictate the direction of your company can take you in new directions. · Getting new ideas out means starting a conversation with the points that will spark interest. After that follow with research and science that can't be disputed. · Having a board within your company that is filled with respected professionals will give the new ideas you produce a level of credibility that others might not have.

An investment in thought leadership - for yourself or your org - compounds over time. Starting earlier in your career will have a greater impact. So what's stopping you from getting started? For today's episode, I've invited Vaishali Dialani to chat with us. Vaishali is a Senior Customer Experience Strategist at Konabos Consulting; a full-service, end-to-end, digital experience solutions agency. Vaishali paints a picture of her earliest journey in thought leadership by participating in everything she could find, and every event possible – often leading events, even though it was early in her education and career. By taking these initiatives she was able to get speaking and presenting opportunities that strengthened her confidence and opened the door to networking prospects. Meeting a connection at a conference is great but you need to follow up to foster that new relationship. Vaishali shares how she does active outreach, reaching out via LinkedIn to grow her network. She goes beyond people she has met in person and explains what you should be looking for in a contact before reaching out. Finally, Vaishali shares how growing up in India and being from a blended family gives her unique perspectives that she uses to enhance her Customer Experience (CX) work. We learn how her personality not only affects the CX work she does but also how her personality is blended directly into the work. In this episode Vaishali shares incredible advice for starting the thought leadership experience, excelling at customer experience, and nurturing a network of value. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought Leadership doesn't have to be industry changing ideas. If you have thoughts and opinions - share them! · You are never going to know everything about your field of expertise. Share what you know now, you can share now. · People don't invest enough in learning. You can never know enough and can always be sharpening your craft.

All right, thoughtleaders – be honest. Have you ever nodded off a little during a presentation? Now imagine a conference filled with rock and roll, choreographed numbers, and comedy. That's a presentation you'd sit up and pay attention to! Our guest today is Kraig Kleeman, the founder and Executive Producer for Rock the C-Suite a production company that brings electrifying original and relevant musical performances to corporate events. In addition, he is the author of The Must-React System: User's Guide to Prospecting C-Suite Executives which provides a strategy for winning meetings with senior executives. Kraig shares where the inspiration for Rock the C-Suite came from and how corporate messaging is better received through the performing arts. He describes the high energy performances he produces that can be the main stage of a conference delivering an audience-focused show that provides researched topics that mean the most to those putting on the event. Before Kraig was rocking the stage he had authored The Must-React System and he explains why when doing outreach leading with value proposition and product benefit language might seem intuitive it actually isn't the most effective method. In fact, providing fact-based briefings combined with smart questions can allow the potential client to map your research to their own experiences and advance you to the next step! Kraig provides great advice for landing meetings with executives and creating high-octane events that any company can take advantage of. Three Key Takeaways: · Conference producers should prioritize the well-being of the audience over the distribution of information. If the audience has zoned out, they will not take in the information. · When crafting content for a conference make sure to collaborate with the event owner to really dial in a deliverable that is effective for them and their audience. · Cold call outreach to executives will have greater success if you lead with fact based research and not value proposition

Data Governance may not sound exciting - but it's critical! It covers how your company produces, consumes, collects, and destroys data. So, with businesses generating and using more data than ever, why is this role so often forgotten? Our guest today is Lauren Maffeo, Author of "Designing Data Governance from the Ground Up" and an adjunct Lecturer of Design at The George Washington University. Lauren sets the tone for us by explaining what Data Governance is and how too much data is produced for one person or even a single team to own it all. Lauren lays out how you can create data points from subject matter experts around key areas of data your company produces or ingests, such as Sales, Marketing, and Customer Data; each of which can then have sub-sets to provide even more structure. Lauren shares why you need to understand how data works in the subject matter expert's day to day job and how data governance will help them do their job more effectively. In addition, we learn about data dictionaries and the big part they play in data governance and enablement efforts to ensure clarity is provided across domains on the exact meaning of terms that might have different meanings depending on the context. Three Key Takeaways: · The biggest challenge to doing data governance well is having a thought leadership strategy around it to get other colleagues on board. · There is too much data produced today for one person or one team to own all of it. You need to make it a collective effort across technical and non-technical roles. · You can not succeed in sales, marketing, or customer success without data.

The road to becoming a Thought Leader is never a straight one. So going from college basketball coach to book influencer might not seem that odd. Still, the map to get there is fascinating! Our guest today is Owen Sammarone the Founder and CEO of Unleash the Knowledge, LLC; an online, educational community of lifelong learners and avid readers helping authors reach a larger audience. Having a business based around books you might assume Owen has a background in publishing or marketing, but he was previously a graduate assistant with the UConn men's basketball program. Owen shares that while he loved basketball his true passion came from the self-development habits of coaches. Owen began to explore what his coach was reading and listening to, then sharing the takeaways he found on Instagram, nurturing a following of self-development junkies. After Owen was contacted by a heart doctor, seeking to pay for promotion of his new book to Owen's followers he realized Unleash the Knowledge could be more than a social media platform. IT could become a business model. Through this episode Owen shares his journey growing his platform and finding his footing as well as tips you can use to grow your own social media platform! Three Key Takeaways: · In order to grow a social media platform you need to create a niche that works for your audience and provides value. · Certain social media platforms tend to skew towards certain trends or topics. That doesn't mean you can't grow a successful audience outside those bubbles if you are dedicated to it. · Growing a platform requires consistency. You can't just post when you need something from your audience.

There are few thought leaders who work behind the scenes to create, develop, and deploy programs while simultaneously being the face of the brand. What does it take to find success on both ends? Today we've invited internationally recognized presenter, content developer, business leader and coach Curtis Bateman! He is currently the Vice President of International Direct Offices at FranklinCovey, and was previously the President and CEO of Red Tree Leadership before orchestrated a buyout to FranklinCovey. With few thought leaders working both the back and front of the house, Curtis gives us some insights into what it takes to be successful doing both. He tells us about the passion and extra hours that are required to practice what you preach. However creating doesn't have to be a solo job, in fact, Curtis shares how having Brain Buddies can help sharpen your skills. Having a knowledgeable team around you to help research stories and ideas as well as draft or polish content creates a high quality end product. Curtis tells us how being in the market place every day while creating content creates a constant cycle of feedback as content goes out to the audience, gets live reactions, and can be revised based on that input. This system has been used to pressure test everything from their framework to his newest book Change: How to Turn Uncertainty Into Opportunity. Having had a boutique company that exited to FranklinCovey, Curtis fully understands what it takes to position yourself for acquisition. While each instance is different Curtis shares how having principle-based content that matched up with the prospective buyer, having a Fortune 50 client, and thought leaders with significant industry experience that were capable of making contributions inside the new organization all played a role in a successful acquisition. Three Key Takeaways: · Content creation doesn't have to be a single player game. By working with others you can polish your skills and elevate your content. · Taking ideas to your audience and revising based on feedback can give you real time advice on where the market agrees or disagrees with your content. · Exiting a boutique firm for a bigger company means you don't get to touch every aspect of the business anymore. You have to learn to trust others.

How do you get attention for a product that could be used by millions but few are aware of without having a massive marketing budget? Thought leadership! Our guest today is Martha Orellana, Vice President of Marketing for MrSteam, a company that converts regular showers into steam showers in personal residence as well as gyms and spas. While most people have heard of a steam shower, few would imagine that you could have one in your home or that people have had them for decades. Martha shares the history of MrSteam and the challenges they faced getting people to know they could have such a product in their own home. By targeting and educating architects, plumbers, and designers MrSteam was able to create a chain that not only knew about their offerings but became champions of it! When it came to educating the professionals that would be installing and selling their products Martha went beyond information sessions or bookwork, creating elegant invitations to Camp Feelgood, hosted at high end hotels where they would not only explain the health benefits of steam showers, but spend time in them providing a luxury experience they could then speak directly to when answering questions of future clients. Martha offers great insights into reaching new audiences and differentiating yourself from the pack by using interesting, dramatic, and meaningful tactics. Three Key Takeaways: · When you don't have a massive marketing budget, solid thought leadership can allow you to punch above your weight class. · When getting the message about your offering out you have to target the right audience. By going after the professionals between you and your product you can educate the supply chain and create champions. · Theatric and dramatic visuals can often help grab the audience's attention and allow you to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Publishers often look at books as seasonal, but an author needs to look at their book as a long term investment. What should you be thinking of a year before publishing, and how can your book help your business - even years after it was released? I've invited Katie Anderson, internationally recognized leadership coach, consultant, speaker, and founder of Katie Anderson Consulting to join me. At the time of this recording, Katie was celebrating the three year anniversary of her book, Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn: Lessons from Toyota Leader Isao Yoshino on a Lifetime of Continuous Learning. Katie's journey into thought leadership literally took her around the world, from California to Australia and then to Japan, where she had the unique opportunity to partner with Isao Yoshino, a 40-year Toyota Motor Corporation leader. This time spent together became the fuel for her book, Learning to Lead, in which she weaves together Mr. Yoshino's heartwarming and deeply reflective stories of personal discovery and organizational history, and offers her own unique perspective, with the intention of helping others learn to lead and lead to learn. In the year leading up to publishing the book, Katie had a lot of big decisions to make. Katie shares how she was introduced to traditional publishers both big and small, but ultimately chose to self-publish. We learn the importance of having the goals of the publisher align with those of the author, and how an author can maintain control over the message and look of the book. Now, three years after publishing, Katie shares the impact the book has had on her business and what she did to ensure it found its way into the right hands. She talks about sharing stories from the book and doing so from the heart, without a focus on selling units, but with a passion for the lessons that can be learned and the impact and value the book can have for others. Three Key Takeaways: * You need to have a full understanding of the purpose of your book. Allow that purpose to influence the choices around publishing, look, and feel. * There needs to be complete alignment between a publisher and author. If you can't find that perhaps another publishing method would better suit you. * When self-publishing it is still important to hire professionals to do the work you are not good at. This will ensure a polished end product.

You need top talent to start a thought leadership function in your organization. But what if that talent already exists in your org? Whether you are responsible for starting a thought leadership function at a startup, or at a large company, you need to have the right talent, the right org support, and the right metrics to define success. In today's episode, we're chatting with Dr. Karthik Nagendra, Founder and CEO of ThoughtStarters, the first thought leadership marketing company in Asia. He's also the author of The Thought Leader Way: Leading Your Business with Thought Leadership in an Altered World, which details his experience and journey as a thought leader, and offers mental blueprints for helping new thought leaders and their teams excel. Karthik takes us back to 2007, when he first started doing thought leadership at a startup in an emerging field. He shares how an assessment they created boosted the profile of the organization, and shaped the engineering industry as a whole. Moving onto larger corporate thought leadership roles, Karthik shares how he helped stand up thought leadership as a research wing. He worked to identify internal subject matter experts and help them "come out of the shadows" and share their knowledge and passion. This partnership led to co-created white papers and other content that elevated organizational awareness while increasing their credibility. We also discuss category creation and the need to continue to look forward, finding new ways to solve old problems. Karthik discusses how we often keep doing things the same old way, even if that way might not be as effective as it once was. He explains how he's helped take salespeople down a journey of exploration and experimentation, to a point where it influences their peers to seek newer methods as well. This episode tackles thought leadership from both a large and small scale, and offers advice for leaders, sales teams, marketing, and researchers alike! Three Key Takeaways: * When starting a thought leadership function look internally for experts who are eager to share their knowledge and passion. Then give them a platform to do so. * The buy-in from senior leadership is key when starting thought leadership. If they don't believe in working for the long game, then thought leadership won't be effective. * If you are asking poor questions you are going to get poor answers. And if you are creating thought leadership from those answers, people are going to think you're a poor thought leader.

Thought leading is a busy life! You write books, travel for keynote speaking, network with other experts and create lots of content. However, that means your business is limited to your personal time! So, what can you do to help your content sell itself? Our guest today has excelled at everything "thought leadership," including the ability to remove himself from the day to day of a business he built. Michael Bungay Stainer is the best-selling author of The Coaching Habit, a renowned keynote speaker, and Founder of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that provides training to enterprise companies. With Michael's newest book How to Work with (Almost) Anyone: Five Questions for Building the Best Possible Relationships having just hit the shelf we start our conversation discussing the phases of a book launch and how marketing a book is more than marketing just the book. He shares how a book can become the gateway to your larger ecosystem. Michael gives the pros and cons of traditional and hybrid publishing as well as why you need to treat your book like starting a business, giving it at least 2 – 3 years to flourish and grow. In addition to being an author Michael knows the keynote speaking side of the business sharing how at the best of times focusing on speaking can be lucrative, ending with standing ovations and nice hotel rooms. However it can also mean hundreds of days on the road, airport delays, and fatigue. We learn the criteria Michael uses for saying Yes to a possible gig and how speaking can fit into your business model. Books and speaking are powerful tools for spreading thought leadership but how can your business go on without you writing and speaking? As the Founder of Box of Crayons, Michael ensured the company benefitted from his best-selling books and reputation, but also ensured the sales training could stand without him. He shares both the B2B and B2C strategy that is allowing him to work 1 hour a month for Box of Crayons without the company falling apart in his absence. This episode is a master class on everything a thought leader needs to know to ensure not only the success of their personal brand, but the company they someday will leave behind. Three Key Takeaways: · It is really hard to write a book. Except compared to marketing a book. It's really hard to market a book... except compared to getting people to read a book. · Hybrid publishing means you are the executive editor of your book. You get to call it what you want and give it the look and feel you want. · As time goes on you need to watch the market and see if your target avatars have changed. When they do you may need to update your content and offers to accommodate their growing needs.