Thought leadership should be fun, fast, and fearless. You tap into excitement about new ideas and advocate for something better. That’s the mindset behind The Idea Sled. Projects glide forward gracefully. It’s the momentum of commitment. This newsletter shows you how.
“I don’t ever need to speak with that person again.”
That was the first thing my client said in a debrief call after speaking with a writer.
To be fair, the writer could have been a bit better prepared, but it was a reasonable set of questions to ask. They had a structured set of predetermined, open-ended “how,” “what,” and “why” questions and systematically went through them one by one. The entire interaction followed the textbook techniques of an interview.
So, what went wrong?
From Interview to Conversation
Interview techniques make sense for journalism. They allow journalists to extract information and repackage it for public consumption, while remaining as neutral as possible.
But interviews fall flat in thought leadership. Thought leadership discussions require a deeply engaged, conversational approach between thought leaders and a writer. Before writing, a writer must play the part of a thinking partner
While an interviewer’s job is to transcribe responses, a thinking partner has a point of view on a topic. A thinking partner takes an active role in helping thought leaders articulate and strengthen their ideas. Having an initial point of view does not mean inserting bias into the process or overriding thought leaders. Instead, it’s a tactical maneuver that starts a conversation and elicits reactions from thought leaders.
Conversing as a Thinking Partner
Here’s how the thinking partnership process works:
Circulate topics and thesis statements in advance.
A writer should research the general topic enough to formulate a relevant starting point. That research should include the thought leader and company’s prior publications, thought leadership from direct competitors and other credible organizations, and an analysis of any data gathered (such as survey responses or market data).
It also benefits from deep industry knowledge and a clear sense of what is relevant to decision makers, since the entire point of thought leadership is to influence how senior leaders understand their problems, potential solutions, and impactful trends.
From those inputs, a thinking partner develops a short briefing, no more than a single page or readable email. This briefing can include a few questions to explore, but it should not be a script for the live meeting with thought leaders. It merely sets a general direction.
Conduct interactions like an engaging conversation.
Peppering thought leaders with questions or conducting an interrogation does not create room for thought leaders to share their best insights. While they may seem unbiased and objective, predefined questions already impose a narrative by presuming what’s relevant.
More important, what thought leaders really think often lies under the surface. Unlike an interviewer, a thinking partner helps thought leaders bring their ideas forward and then shapes them into genuinely novel insights.
A conversational approach is more effective in excavating those ideas. However, it doesn’t mean meandering with no agenda. A thinking partner comes to a conversation with a clear set of intentions that begin with the theses they develop in preparation. The key is remaining intentional throughout the discussion, not with a goal of hearing and transcribing what thought leaders say, but with an intent to bring out their most essential points of view.
Emphasize the epiphanies.
An engaging conversation will stimulate thought leaders. They will have realizations that they didn’t anticipate. Ideally, it will bring up surprising and counterintuitive turns of thought where fresh ideas reside. Those moments and the path you took to reach them provide structure and narrative tension.
When a thinking partner shifts roles into writing, it’s that dialogic process that creates the architecture of thought leadership output. Strong thought leadership has a beginning, middle, and end, with a sometimes surprising and suspenseful path for traversing those narrative arcs.
Better Mindset, Better Process, Better Outcomes
Following this process results in better insights and better writing. It also delivers a better experience for thought leaders who participate. And their satisfaction does matter. When they feel more engagement and affinity in the process, they recognize their own thinking, packaged in wall-crafted prose. It reduces turbulence and time in their review process. It also makes them eager to support future thought leadership projects.
I started this newsletter with a story of a burned bridge. By contrast, thinking partnership and conversation help build and strengthen bridges.
“You made me sound smarter than I thought I was. What should we write about next?”
That was what a different client said to me at the end of a review session.
It’s an entirely different dynamic, one that fosters compelling, novel thought leadership and generates a sustainable stream of future ideas.
Three Grace Notes
“The trouble is, there are just so damn many of us out there trying to be unique at the same time, using the same preprogrammed tools, writing in the same fonts, answering the same prompts.” —Naomi Klein, Doppelganger
“For the best part of every mind is not that which [a person] knows, but that which hovers in gleams, suggestions, tantalizing unpossessed before him.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted in Robert D. Richardson, Emerson: The Mind on Fire
“But what if, as I have already said, questioning is not at all the way to essential answers? Then it seems to me that he who inquires into being, and devotes everything to working out the question of being, does not truly know to where he is under way.” —Martin Heidegger, Country Path Conversations
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