There’s a fundamental difference between a thinking partner and a hired writer for thought leadership. Yesterday I was working on a project that reminded me of the stark difference between these roles.
A hired writer asks questions and documents the answers. They may lightly synthesize or shape a narrative for what they’ve heard, but the process is largely passive. The value they add is usually more in their ability to structure ideas into the shape of a written piece using a reasonably competent ability to compose paragraphs and sentences.
As an aside, many of my clients are none-too-happy even about those compositional skills. Too many writers, my clients say, bring generic compositional skills to the table. Sometimes, writers try to force thought leadership into a model of copywriting, SEO writing, or journalism. It doesn’t work, and it leaves subject matter experts with a massive clean-up to make sense of the first draft.
A thinking partner works entirely differently. A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a small team of clients who work on a specific category of financial transaction in Europe.
The conversation lasted about 20 minutes. We touched on some of the trends they are seeing. I pushed them to tell me more about what their clients have been asking. My challenge was for them to articulate why those trends and needs were changing.
Yesterday, I drafted the resulting piece. Yes, it incorporated the experts’ input as part of the background. But most of my work involved analyzing the trends and outlook for these transactions, in the context of how they fit into broader EU policy objectives. A significant component included analyzing the facts and implications of proposed European Commission rule changes.
I am not an expert in EU policy or regulation. But the skill I contribute is what I would call a principle of sufficient expertise. I heard my clients’ thinking, and then I worked through the most relevant context to help give their thinking depth. I didn’t come up with the thought leadership. Instead, I facilitated it as a partner.
Typically, hired writers do not and cannot do work like this. It’s not just the sufficient expertise to make sense of something like complex regulatory documentation to meet a known need. Many experienced writers could, in fact, muddle their way through a summary of the document or ask for help from AI.
More important, it’s the ability to identify and meet an unknown need that strengthens a client’s thinking by making it more nuanced and meaningful. It’s creating context to help the client’s thinking resonate and shine.
