When we run training sessions for creators of thought leadership, one query invariably arises: Have longer reports had their time and should we be focusing on snackable content?
Our answer is firstly that these options aren’t, and shouldn’t be, mutually exclusive, and secondly that both are important.
There are times when I’m more than happy to go with the flow—I’ll cheerfully stop for a chat when I bump into a friend, am happy to lose track of time when I’m engrossed in a good book, and enjoy exploring new places without a detailed itinerary. However, when it comes to my professional life, I’m rather more demanding: I want to see objectives and agendas, to know why I’m being asked to read a 30-page document, and to understand your expectations for that project you’ve just handed to me.
Source has been analysing the quality of thought leadership for 20 years and White Space subscribers can access our reports from the past six years. As we pulled together our report for 2018 H2, we reread our comments from earlier years and reflected on why firms have moved up, and down, our table. Here are four messages that stand out for us:
Keen to stay ahead of the curve, or at least to know what curve they’re falling behind, our clients often want to know what the latest trends are in thought leadership. And they’re usually relieved to hear that, from our vantage point–looking across all the content created by all the firms we follow, the pace of change appears surprisingly slow.
It’s amazing how we pay such little attention to things that haven’t changed. That’s fine if those things are doing what they need to do, but it’s less fine if they could really do with being fixed. Those of you who, like me, have moved home recently will probably be well aware of this phenomenon. I’d stopped noticing the dead branches in the back garden and the door that needed a coat of paint—until I decided to sell my home and suddenly woke up to the impact they’d have on my ability to sell the house.
Think back over the things you’ve read and heard (rather than experienced first-hand) in the past week. What is most vivid?
For me, it’s the decisions made by the lead characters in a new BBC series Press (exploring the personal and professional lives of reporters and editors at two—officially fictional—British newspapers); the background story of an artist, Saima Rasheed, whose work I saw on Saturday (she studied miniature painting in Lahore and now applies those skills to contemporary scenes); and the recent experiences of a colleague who had a challenging summer.
What do all of my examples have in common? Stories. Stories with detail and meaning. Stories are memorable. They also help us explain the ideas behind them to others.
Consultants make their living from telling organisations how to do things better. So why, when it comes to thought leadership, are they so hesitant to offer actionable recommendations, or to say a little about how they could help beyond the advice already provided on the page or screen?
In our latest ratings, and this is very much in line with past experience, prompting action scores—on average—a dismal 1.91, far lower than the average score for differentiation, appeal, or resilience.
We spend an awful lot of time on consulting firms’ websites, checking out what content is promoted and how. But despite our visits to so many different destinations, hardly any firm has ever asked “Who are you?” And even though we keep coming back for more, barely anyone thinks to question “How can we help you?” If this happened in the real as opposed to the virtual world, and we were in the market for professional services, I’m sure we would be taking ourselves and our wallets elsewhere. So why are professional services firms so hesitant to be more proactive online?
“If you have an over-preoccupation with perception and trying to please people’s expectations, then you can go mad.”*Self-help gurus and successful artists alike tell us not to worry about what others think and to focus instead on meeting our own high standards. In their view, the audience is a concept that is best ignored—an imagined entity that can only get in the way of great work. And in some aspects of life, I’d agree with this advice. However, when it comes to thought leadership, failing to worry about the audience is a frequent cause of content that fails to hit the mark.