Browse our ideas on thought leadership and book development — how to reflect on your work, shape and simplify your ideas, and share what you know authentically — and reflections from our work as book ghostwriters.
“That’s a good question.” How often do you hear that? When I hear, “That’s a good question,” it signals that the other person is pausing to think. Whatever I’m asking them is unexpected and is pushing them to reflect in a new way. In other words, I hit the jackpot.
AI can’t write your thought leadership for you. If you’re looking for an Easy Button for thought leadership, I have bad news. It doesn’t exist. Sure, people are selling Easy Buttons: “Click here to generate your AI-powered story!” A recent example: One storytelling coach is developing a new AI tool
At networking events, it’s not hard to get people talking. But what’s harder to master is how to get people talking about their work in a way that drives connection and understanding. When you meet someone new, how can you learn about their work quickly? How can you really get
What do you do when you have a big idea? How do you spread that idea to other people to create a movement? To build a platform that other people can climb onto? The true goal of thought leadership isn’t gaining fame or grabbing people’s attention. It’s about spreading your
How do you feel about challengers — people who question everything and shake things up? I think this personality type can make a helpful thought leader, as long as they present solutions along with their critiques. I define “thought leaders” as people who think in public about their work. Thought
“Focus on the hardest part of the problem.” That’s advice that my client, technical teamwork expert Chris Danek, gives to teams working on complicated medical device problems. The advice applies to thought leadership, too, whether you’re talking about your work as a mechanical engineer or a management consultant. Hear me
How do you respond to the question “What do you do?” Can you answer it in a sentence? Is your answer as simple as “I do X for Y because Z”? Or do you have to take a deep breath before you wander down a long, winding road toward an
What has your attention right now? What are you spending your time on, working on, thinking about, exploring? (No, I really want to know. I love this stuff.) I love talking to people about their work. I also love hearing about all the things on their mind that have nothing
Can I convince you that thought leadership is generous? When I lead workshops about thought leadership, the groups usually fall into one of two categories: people who are eager to improve their thought leadership; and people who are, frankly, not interested in thought leadership at all. Recently, I talked to
This week, my eight-year-old went to surf camp (one of the very fun rites of passage of living in a beach town). On the first day of camp, I watched a team of coaches herd the huge crew of neon-rashguard-clad kids onto the beach, through a round of stretches and
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