Building Thought Leaders in Your Company

The development of new and creative intellectual property drives growth and creates vitality.  Thought leadership has usually been seen to be the domain of a few key individuals, usually executives, product marketers or perhaps someone from engineering.  As we transition to a socially connected world, the importance of thought leadership deepens and widens.  Think of it in two dimensions:

1. Individual thought leaders will continue to be important and must be ready to take a bigger place in the spotlight.
2.  A broader employee population will require preparation to contribute to your company’s thought leadership capital.

The transition of commerce to one that is increasingly based on ideas and how they are communicated continues unabated.  And it’s not limited to traditional high technology or medical device companies.  One of the most successful consumer product companies of our era, Apple, has built a brand based on the perception of having a magic sauce of ingenuity and great ideas.  And while your company may not have aspirations to crearte the next iPod, it can surely benefit from a focus on building thought leadership and distributing it through social media channels.

Define this as a Corporate Priority

In my previous position as a Chief Marketing Officer, escalating the level of thought leadership within my group and the broader company was always one of my bigger challenges.  It was particularly frustrating because we had incredible resources and insights that would make great contributions to our company and the industry that we competed in.  The fundamental problem was that we really did not internalize the importance of developing and codifying our intellectual property that could establish ourselves as thought leaders.  To materially improve our standing as thought leaders, priorities need to be established that require our employees to contribute to the public domain.

 

HR leaders can help to build these types of priorities into performance management guidelines and procedures.  They can provide leadership to the executive team in defining objective guidelines for how thought leadership can be encouraged, managed, and ultimately measured.  Providing expertise on how employees can grow professionally while contributing to the brand and standing of their companies is a tremendous opportunity for the HR function.

Define Guidelines for Distribution of IP

A future blog post will address the broader topic of setting up policies and procedures regarding the distribution of content into the public domain.  Any company that makes a commitment to increasing their thought leadership performance will be faced with tough questions of just how much IP should be released.  The reality is that the window of opportunity can be quite small as all companies try to differentiate themselves by exposing their insights into the process and outcomes regarding their success.  The only way to succeed is to define clear guidelines for employees to follow and then encourage them to be passionate in sharing their ideas.  Your strategy should be reviewed several times a year to measure its effectiveness in light of evolving market conditions.

Create a Culture of Listening

A common theme of this blog is the importance of objective listening.  Social media fundamentally requires that we listen and interact with our audience.  The word social implies the existence of interactions. And the good news is that the world is full of content to listen to.  Basic expertise is becoming a commodity and all of us who want to be thought leaders should understand the basic insights that are already in the social environment.

 

A good place for your employees to start is to read blogs and other social media posts of experts and thought leaders in your industry.  Making insightful and challenging comments can establish your own employee (and their employer) as a thought leader.  They can build a relationship with individuals who can be quite influential in the marketplace.  Remember to move beyond a view of the world that is executive centric—some of your best ideas may well come from individuals deep within your organization who have great ideas.

Build Great Communicators

My personal experience as a manager of highly paid professionals is that the general level of writing skill in America has declined dramatically over the past 25 years.  Hopefully, the explosive growth of social media will exercise the writing muscles of the average professional and lift up the average level of communication acumen.  At least we can hope for such an outcome!

 

While most training has focused on traditional business content, developing writing skills should be a part of everyone’s career development plan.  Speaking in front of a video camera is also an acquired skill (even for those who have specialized in YouTube videos) and employees should be prepared for this type of opportunity as well.  As video blogging grows in importance, having a story to tell in front of a video camera is just as important as telling it in front of a keyboard.

 

The development of all of these skills has been haphazard and ad hoc.  It represents a huge opportunity for the proactive HR leader to provide broad value to their companies.

Develop Employees’ Personal Brand

Finally, the whole topic of personal branding has emerged as an entirely new topic to consider.  Even professional athletes have come to understand this topic.  Many of us will remember an incident early in 2009 when Lebron James refused to allow an amateur video of himself to be released because it would detract from his personal brand.  For key employees who are public leaders for your company, creating their brand is a critical process that needs to be developed.  A great book on the topic, “Crush It,” can be seen in a video review at www.readitfor.me.  The book also approaches this topic from a social perspective, so it’s a great starting point for anyone who is interested in the topic.

 

One topic that ultimately come up will be the ownership of the personal brand.  While the employee ultimately owns his/her own brand, the same might not be true of blogs and other public expressions that have been paid for by your company.  In some cases, these types of blogs can be very valuable assets and should be covered by your company’s IP ownership policy.  An ounce of proactivity will go a long ways!