Thought leadership

One common feedback that we get in client value surveys is to bring thought leadership to customers and that they need “consultative approach”. Beyond a certain level, leaders get feedback that they should demonstrate thought leadership. Along with innovation, bottomline, visibility, proactiveness and initiative this might have been repeated so often that it started losing its meaning. But in its true essence, this may mean trying to figure out why we are doing the work we are doing, where are we going and where should we be going, what is coming up in the future for which we (ourselves, our team, organization, customers) should be prepared for and what could we contribute back to the industry through our unique experiences.

“He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.”

I have seen many of us struggle with the pointlessness of the rat race we are in. Many of us are beyond the stage where work is prescribed to us and we need to figure things out – where should we put most of our energy, how to keep the team one step ahead of the day to day struggle and cut through the noise to figure out signals and patterns. Everywhere we turn problems could be staring at us. As a teammate had put that she doesn’t watch horror films, could rather look at inbox if in mood for something like that. Inbox could be a place for hundred problems to solve – process deviations, people aspirations to meet, customer complaints, communication issues, unnecessary distractions, tedious operations. At any point, we would have energy to solve a handful of this and live with the knowledge that there are many other worms eating at the rind that we will have to postpone to deal with at a later stage. This is exactly the stage where we could get lost – no one to tell us exactly what to do, our action or inaction could have a slow chain reaction which cannot be traced back to exactly what did or did not do, there is no clear credit that can be taken which will give immediate gratification. Fuel to run the engine should be produced from within. ?

We have to find the answers ourselves. Where are we in the bigger scheme of things? Industry moving all the time, new technologies coming in, we don’t know at what age or era we are living in now (is it Industry 4.0 or 5.0 now), dizzying cycles of growth and decline which disorients us since the what we did during boom phase changes suddenly to other direction. Why are people leaving us? Is it natural phase of their growth and personal journey or we could have done something different? Why are we failing – is it a temporary blip or a signal of deeper rot? What would disrupt us and catch us unaware?

Entropy – gradual descent to disorder

I heard someone say that some leaders take it that their only job is not to rock the boat. Maintain status quo, do not take risks and just control costs. But systems which are in steady state will decline over time. It is true about organizations, teams?or products. To fight entropy, we need to think of what next? I watched a painful football match last weekend where my favorite team, Manchester United was demolished by Liverpool for 7-0. It is one of their worst losses in 100 years. It is known that they were in decline for a decade. Interesting was that the perpetrator of this demolition job are themselves in trouble this season. It is said that their manager (Jurgen Klopp) has a 7 year itch – he rebuilds a new team, makes them champions and then suddenly the decline sets in. I hope he recovers and proves them wrong (I like the guy), but what is it – is it set of wrong decisions, winning most of the times numbs you and blinds you from systemic rot creeping in, over confidence, tiredness? How long can you stay at the top and be the best? How does one break free of this curse and be reborn again? Rising tide lifts all boats – it is easy in a boom phase, talent aplenty, money not a problem, no dearth of interesting problems to solve – but what happens when going gets tough? Most of the times, we would be captains of such ships – only weapon is our thought – how do we solve such puzzles while maintaining our sanity and come out at the other end in one piece?

Art of distilled thought

One of my mentors shared this insight which has stayed with me for more than a decade. He said a senior executive comes to him sometimes to bounce off some ideas and thoughts. Most often they know their ideas have merit to begin with, they have confidence in their ability or yes-men surrounding them have already affirmed the validity of it. But they are not getting a counter view or someone who can poke holes in it or identify a blind spot. Most of the time when he is approached with such a discussion, he is able to say why the idea will work or won’t work and that insight might be useful enough due to which he is sought after later as well. He used to think deeply about our nature of work, how we work and distill it down to a sentence which hits the mark like a whack to the head that wakes you up.

I had an experience with another that I hold in high regard. He was visiting the office recently for some other purpose and I asked him if he can meet a customer who is there on the same day. He said any time, since our primary job is attending to customers. Before the meeting, he asked me about our current work, priorities and what the customer is looking for. In the meeting, he listened for first half of the meeting - asked the customer to explain their vision and strategy, what problems are they facing and then provided three inputs which were topical. His insight had one or two things I hadn’t heard framed that way before.

Now this must have preceded a lot of patient work of learning and thinking over a long period. It is not a fluke or winging an opinion off the cuff which lands just so perfect for the situation. Like any artist or athlete, this would have taken a lot of practice. ?

“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

We have ocean of knowledge now. At this point, we could ask ChatGPT to explain it to us like a 5 year old or 10 year old (I think it tells some white lies too though). We need to cultivate the right sources – books to read, experts and tinkerers in the industry to follow to know how they are applying the learnings, courses to take, hello worlds to write ourselves to get our feet wet, newsletters to subscribe to, podcasts to listen, videos to watch, conferences to go to, network of peers who could share their challenges, mentors to ask questions. We need to create the routines and habits – what would we imbibe daily, from where and when, constant sampling and curation of content. This is hard work.

Then comes the synthesis of what we learnt and applying it to the work. I think it starts with not being afraid to say it out loud, being vulnerable to put us out there. Many times it may come out as a crazy suggestion – anything new sounds like that anyway. I imagine this as standup comedians testing their new material in small clubs. I think many things that is said now would have been tried and tested with different audiences, small and big, much before we hear it. In the same way, articulate our understanding of the world view, with trusted friends and colleagues and keep refining. Writing is act of clarifying the thinking. That helps too. Try new learnings in small ways in our work – when a theory meets a practical scenario, we would know how much we really understood.

Jerry Seinfeld: I'm never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I'm thinking, could I do something with that?

Howard Stern: That, to me, sounds torturous.

Seinfeld: Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you're comfortable with.