Are You Solving the Right Problem? | 702 | Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. So today my guest is Thomas Wedel Wedelsberg. I'm hoping I pronounced that right, cuz that was my biggest challenge of the morning. He's a Harvard Business Press author. He's a keynote speaker, a globally recognized expert on reframing innovation and problem solving. And his most recent book is What's Your Problem? It was recommended by Google's Eric Schmidt with the words, if you want the superpower of solving better problems, read this book. So there's more on his bio, but I'd rather just talk to him. So welcome aboard today, Thomas. And I hope I didn't mangle your name, although I might not be the first.

I mean, you could try for the Danish version, but that is utterly unpronounceable by non-Danes. So I've just— all right.

I don't know what version I mildly mangled, but I don't know it was Danish. So interesting stuff going on. Let's start with the, the how the hell, how did this happen? How did one get here? Right. If you were thinking back 5, 10, 20 years ago, what were the things that happened to make it all happen, if you will?

It is 20 years ago and I, it was really me starting working with an old professor of mine, Patty Miller. We're, uh, that got me the opportunity to go into a lot of different companies and do in-depth research on the topic of what ended up as my first book, namely how innovation happens in practice when you're kind of in a big company. And eventually, after 4 years of doing that, we approached Harvard together and said, we think there's a book in this, and they agreed. So that, that, like, the short version is it was kind of knowing a lot of the theory, but but then getting the chance to see how that actually played out in real people's lives inside companies and kind of sorting out, oh, there's things we actually need to think differently about. There's really good advice we can give here. And that's kind of what made Harvard say yes to publishing it as well.

So stay there a minute because a lot of people that I speak to and work with hope, you know, one is lightning in a bottle. They're doing all the right things, they're working hard, they're not even thinking about sort of scaling, leveraging, whatever. And then something happens. It might be a TED Talk, it might be Harvard Business Review, it could be strategy, whatever. There's one of dozens and dozens of things that can happen. What would you advise folks around looking for something like that? Like Harvard, people spend a lot of time trying to get into Harvard Business Review and there are no easy tricks. And even if you follow the protocol, whatever, anything you would think about or recommend to folks in terms of how to accelerate the lightning in a bottle?

I mean, this is not a very, uh, but you know, not a tactical answer in the sense like, oh, you need to connect to this person and whatever. What made the difference for us was to find a novel take on a really useful topic. So at the time, innovation was mostly written about in the context of assuming that you're either the CEO or you are a startup in Silicon Valley or whatever.

Sure.

And the people we ran into was, I, uh, basically they were, you know, middle to senior managers in a big company. They were heavily constrained. They were kind of maybe that's bureaucracy and so on.

Right.

And there is very little advice for, for those people.

Kind of like, so that's interesting because I think this concept of the democratization of this thought leadership, right? Because everybody, you know, there's so many things written for the CEO and the reason for that is the CEO can decide to do more or less. Whatever they want within the constraints of a board, right? Yeah. But if you're a middle manager and just do the math, most of us are more in the middle, don't have full agency, whatever. What is there that I can do, right? Like, that's an interesting question. And I think that would apply to other things outside of innovation, whether it's creativity or whatever.

Absolutely. And I, I think that was true for both my books, though. I kind of like running into something that was really important to people but that wasn't very well covered in the existing kind of literature or whatever. Or maybe it was covered somewhat academically, but not in a version that, you know, regular people could pick up and use in their day-to-day lives. And that to me, I think people often assume, how do you, how to get into Harvard? Well, you have to network your way and then connect to an editor and so on. Yeah. And all of that's going to go absolutely nowhere if you then show up with an idea that's kind of like meh. So I advise people to focus a lot on, on kind of how do you find this, that idea?

Okay. So let's take that journey. So you get, let's call it somewhat a combination of skill, meaning you've got these sharp ideas and then luck where Harvard says yes. Okay. So what actually happens? It gets published and then you're virtually famous.

Well, it gets published and then you experience anticlimax. Because you're, you know, you're just standing with a book in your hand and that's nice. But then kind of like, okay. And what happened, at least in my case, was then gradually started to get fun as the book started to get out there and kind of people reacted to it and so on. It built up over time. But, you know, the main thing I say to new authors is like, you know, hey, it was really anticlimactic for me to publish the book. How's it been for you? And most people go like, yes, that's also true for me.

So I love that. I love that framing because I think what happens is, and probably more so with first-time authors, they think the hard work is writing the book, getting the publishing deal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And then there's a release date and then they're waiting and waiting and waiting. And what they don't realize sometimes is as great as Harvard is or any of the other publishers are, the burden is on you to be the evangelist of the book. And there's a lot of work that needs to be done. To get that message out there, right? And it's not a 6-week or 2-month or 3-month thing.

You're not trying to publish a book, you're trying to kind of make a difference in the world. The book is part of that, but it's only a stepping stone. And, and so there is a big question of kind of, right, okay, after the book, what then? And I, you know, that's a lot of the stuff you are an expert in.

Uh, yes. So let's talk about the post-book thing. So how long has your book been out now?

Uh, first one has been since 2013, uh, so that's 12 years. And the most recent one, Watcher Problem, was in 2020. 5 years.

And we had this little COVID thing in the middle there.

Yeah. Oh, what was that you said? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

That might have interrupted things. So what are the lessons that you've learned around being the shepherd of the idea?

I would say, I mean, first and foremost, exactly as you point out, it is kind of a longer journey where you're figuring out how to, how to kind of push your idea into the world, find the people for whom it'll make a difference. I would say, I'm assuming, I think there are people who are really good at marketing their ideas. I'm not necessarily that person. What my strength is, is that has been like insane perfectionism around the book itself. And I think there's a trade-off between, let's say, your book's at 85%, meaning it's good enough to publish. You can publish it. It's going to be a good book.

Yes.

Do you keep working until it's at 95%? It depends. If you're writing about AI, probably just get it out because speed really matters. But the approach I at least have taken is to kind of push it till it cannot get any better. And I think, you know, for somebody who's not necessarily in love with doing marketing, even though it's necessary. I think that's the trade-off that you— the more time you invest in making the book really, really good, the less you have to actively market it yourself. The more people will help you market.

I would, I would— I'll push on that a little, because for some folks it's never good enough, right? And it's actually— that's, that's an excuse for I'm afraid to unleash it, I don't want— I'm afraid for the feedback, et cetera, because, you know, I'm not advocating put out mediocre because I think the reality today, the scarcest resource we're asking of people is not the $20, $30 they spend for the book, but you're basically saying to them, please invest 3, 4 hours in my thinking. That's a big ask. And I would expect that for you to ask that of the public, of me, of whoever, say, and I'm asking that of you because I think it's worthy and I think the return you're gonna get on that That being said, there is a point, and publishers will tell you this all the time, where it's more than good enough. Your definition of 90% might be the publisher's definition of 120%, right? Because that's a subjective thing.

I mean, I think you're spot on because what you need in that ecosystem is other people. It kind of, you know, either to tell you it's not good enough yet or to tell you you're there, go for it.

Well, no, and I think that's a critical point. Because we're the worst judges of the quality of our stuff, right? And sometimes we're embarrassed or we want to polish it or digest more research or whatever the case may be. I think that other people is interesting is have some sort of a cohort or advisory group, whatever, and say, hey, tell me, you can tell me the kids are ugly and cross-eyed. You could tell me the truth. I give you permission. And in fact, I really want you to do that and tell me when it's good enough, right? Like, that's pretty cool. Have you, have you done that with, with the latest book?

Uh, I did more so with the second book, and I think I've got better for it. And I think the marker was really when people started saying, hey, can I share this with a buddy? Because that's a sign that they're suddenly not just kind of saying, hey, this is good, but kind of, oh, I found this useful enough to actually want to share it with Michael over there who has this problem. Now, you know, that, that's a pretty strong indication. So The second book, you'll see the acknowledgement page is kind of 4 pages long. It's all of the people who are like— I'm a great believer in kind of really, um, as many people as you can get involved in, you know, one way or another, which is, which is a bit counterintuitive because when you think about it, writing is, is the ultimate sort of individual sport, but it's really a team sport when you—

yeah, yeah.

I mean, you have two types of teammates. You have, uh, if you're lucky, you have friends who are authors and they can give you really good feedback.

Yeah.

And you probably, regardless, regardless, you have just general friends, they can't necessarily tell you what to fix, but they can tell you if it's working or not. Like, you know, what I literally did was to give people, you know, advanced copies of the book with a red and a green highlighter, orange and green, and said like, green if you liked it, orange if you thought it was terrible or didn't understand it or got bored or whatever. And that they can do even though they're not necessarily book people themselves.

Right. And you have to take that feedback from where it comes, right? If, if you have a friend that's a poet, maybe they can't help you as much as a friend that's, uh, on a board of directors. Right.

So exactly. There are not enough stanzas in this book. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

All the sentences don't rhyme.

Nothing rhymes. This is a terrible book. Nothing rhymes. Yeah. You need, you need more limericks. So now where has the book allowed you to go that you don't think you might have gone without it in terms of clients that you work on or platforms that you're on or what is, what's that experience?

Let's say, uh, the first book launched me into a lot of spaces and conference speaking and so on. The second book was more interesting because it was a method book. It's about solving the right problems and specifically academically it's called like Problem Framing. And that has allowed me to go anywhere because everybody has problems. I can go in, you know, I was down at Fort Bragg and teach this to 2 and 3-star generals in the US Army, and then I can go in the next day, literally in a kindergarten I have, and kind of teach kindergarten kids how to start solving their problems. And that has been—

Stay there a minute, because I think defining that audience, you know, or audiences plural, isn't easy. How do you communicate to the marketplace that although there are universal principles here, I can bring it to life for, you know, on Tuesday to a group of engineers and Thursday to a group of middle school teachers.

I think you focus not on the audience but on the problem you're solving. And the more, the more crisply you put the problem, the easier it'll be for people to opt in and say like, yes, that's the thing. Uh, you know, are you solving the right problems? That is a very good tagline. And like, if you want to make it even better, say are your people solving the right problems? Because if you're speaking to leaders, of course they might think, I'm doing fine on that, but my team, well, they really need to get better.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's an understanding there as well of like, like, who's the person who books you in? And separately, who's your audience for the actual talk or the session, or what are you doing? But I'd say it's, it's primarily for me, the audience I've almost kind of discovered in part subsequently. Of course, for instance, I knew Yes, it's a business book. So that's somewhat defined. It's defined partially by it's Harvard. So we know kind of what their audience is. But beyond that, it's been a matter in part of saying, oh, here's the problem I'm solving. And then seeing who comes up. Like one thing that popped out is like product managers. They love the book because they are in a role where defining the problem clearly is really, really important. So you kind of partially discover your audience as you go through it. And ideally you do a lot of this work before the book comes out, at least.

So stay there for a minute. So now you've, one of the things that you've learned is, and which might not have been on your radar, it doesn't sound like it was when you're writing the book, like this, this resonates with product project managers.

Yeah.

So how has that influenced your productization moving forward? Just saying, ah, if project managers can benefit from the book. I could create a certification series for them or a workshop for them. Like, how has that influenced your framing positioning in the marketplace?

I, I mean, I could probably learn something from, from you here and from any of your other authors because I wouldn't say I'm necessarily a role model in terms of having developed a full product portfolio. For lifestyle reasons, what I prefer to do is to live off giving talks, and they can look like 45-minute keynotes or they can look like half-day kind of or executive education type things. That's chiefly what I do. And to be honest, this is an area I could get better at.

Got it. Got it. So you've been, you've found your lane on the speaking workshop side, but there's probably opportunity in terms of productizing it because, you know, one of the things I think about with my work with clients is, okay, forget about you. It's not about you. You've got this intellectual property, this body of work. That has tremendous value when you go into a room and the maximum value you're gonna get in an hour from it is Thomas goes in a room and speaks and this and that, right? So it's, it's relatively low volume of a relatively high ticket. You could flip that thinking and say, what would a relatively low value, high volume iteration of this look like? Maybe it's an assessment tool, video-based training, whatever. But what that does is it's not an either or. You could have both in your business., but now you're generating revenue without getting on a flight to Seattle or Miami or whatever the case could be.

Yeah, I think that's very true. It is a, um, I think the main constraint I'm working with is kind of, uh, I'm not optimizing for making money. I'm optimizing for what I want to spend my time on, which is fair.

Listen, that's, that's the choice we make. This, yeah. No, this has been, uh, great. I appreciate your time and I appreciate sharing the journey because I think it's really helpful for folks to hear. Good stuff. Thank you so much, Thomas.

Well, thank you, Peter.

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