Best of Organizational Thought Leadership 2022 | Kelly Wright, Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, Mark Smith, and Adam Zuckerman

In thought leadership, good ideas are worth repeating, and great ideas even more so. So as we begin 2023, I want to wish you a happy new year and share with you some curated moments from my conversations about thought leadership last year. In this compilation episode, you'll hear from 4 people who practice thought leadership for their organizations. Kelly Wright, the president and COO of Gong. Kimberly Ellison Taylor, the CEO of KET Solutions, former executive director of finance thought leadership at Oracle, former chair of AICPA, and independent board director. Mark Smith, the director of HR thought leadership at SHRM, and Adam Zuckerman, the product leader for employee engagement software at Willis Towers Watson. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Start with thought leadership and sales. How do they connect in your, in your mind? You come from a sales background, so is it this thing that sits on the side? Is it something that's important for sales? How they connect?

Well, Bill, I think a lot of salespeople don't really quite grasp how powerful thought leadership can be in selling. And it actually, if you look at the top sales leaders in the top sales people, they're really great at thought leadership. Because if you think about what a good salesperson does, is a good salesperson is able to tell the story of what is the status quo and then be able to articulate what are the challenges with the status quo and why there is actually a better desired state, which is different. And to be able to craft that narrative and to do that storytelling to say, hey, this is where you are now and here are the challenges with the now, but there is a better way and it's over here. That's what salespeople are doing. And sometimes people get so focused on, there's the talk track, there's the playbook, I'm gonna push our features and functions. That is what salespeople often do, but that's not the top best way of sales. The top best way of sales is, craft the story about how there is a better way. And that, in my opinion, is almost one and the same as thought leadership.

So the way that I describe thought leadership is around seeing around the corner into the future, figuring out what's important, and then bringing that idea back to people today who need those insights and guiding them on what they need to do. And I think you can make a very similar sort of framework to thought leadership is sales in some way. It's selling a vision of the future.

Yeah, it's selling a vision of the future and it's challenging the status quo. So it's not only selling the vision of the future, it is sometimes people will have an aligned view of the future, but they think they're on that path already. And if you're gonna sell something, you need to drive someone to actually do a change and to evolve and to transform. And that's what salespeople are doing. So that's not the kind of on the first, The second part is, is when you think about great salespeople and what customers are looking for, things have evolved over time. It used to be that companies would just go to a company or a vendor because they want something very specific. But now the world is so competitive and there's so many different options that companies don't want to work with the vendor who's just gonna sell 'em a widget or a service. They want to work with partners who they see as thought leadership partners, who are gonna challenge them, who are gonna make them better, who are going to teach them, who are going to lead. And thought leadership helps to create this framework to lead, to transform, to challenge, to uplevel. It's not just about, hey, this is what I do, let me show you my features and functions. It's about, Hey, we wanna partner with you together to take you to someplace better, to help you transform and improve. And thought leadership is one-on-one with how we work on that sales journey.

So let's talk about in terms of developing sales and sales culture, which I know is something you're passionate about. How do you make that connection to sales folks who are just starting out on that journey? To help them realize that their responsibility isn't the feature and function, but that storytelling, and perhaps even the 3 stories they need to be able to tell?

Yes. Well, if someone's early in their journey or even early with the new company, the first things that a salesperson will be interested to know is, hey, what are the features and what are the functions? But if that's we as sales leaders or as company execs or sales managers or enablement, whoever, if that's all we give the salespeople, that's what they're gonna go sell, the features and the functions, cuz that's all that they're equipped to have. So I think that the responsibility is on everyone who's equipping those new sales folks to be able to be really thoughtful about what is the mission, what is the vision of the company, what is the strategic narrative that we're trying to tell? And to, to make that a bit more pointed, companies spend so much time focusing on the what and the how. What is it that they do? What are their features? What is their product? What are their services? How does it work? How can you integrate it? How can you launch it? How can you implement it? And that actually is the easy part because it, it's very tangible and tactical to talk about how to do that. The much more challenging part is to be able to tell the story of why does this matter? Why do customers even care? Why is this important? And because that is hard and everyone's moving so fast, sometimes companies will skip that part. And so then new employees come in and they're just given the what and the how. But if we can give everyone and frame that story around the why, why does it matter? Why should companies care? What is the set of beliefs that you must have to actually be able to transform and change in the way that's really important to you? Not only does that help in terms of our selling, it also really helps to create a unified sense of purpose for our employees, for our company, and for all of our customers who want to be part of our journey with us. And so that whole unified purpose, mission, vision, That needs to come first before we focus too much on the what and the how. And if you think about with thought leadership, that's what thought leadership is doing, is saying, hey, what is this new story? What is this narrative? And then you fold everything else underneath it.

The first area that I wanna dive in on is thought leadership and the board. And so you've served on a number of boards, and I want to ask you a couple of questions, one of them being, does thought leadership help prepare someone for a board position?

It absolutely does prepare you for a board position, because when you're on the board, whether it is corporate or volunteer board, you're there to provide oversight over the risk, the performance, and high level with the operations of the organization. You're trusting that you've hired— the organization has hired the most amazing leader possible. But the board's role is to really provide that additional fatal flaw oversight. When you're a thought leader, that means to me at least that you have a broad perspective and maybe a differentiated view on a particular topic, let's say technology, or let's say finance, that you then in turn can offer as it relates to those roles that board members play. And I think it is a very critical alignment between having that unique perspective or thought leadership and your role on the board.

So let's dive into that relationship between the board and the senior leadership team, right? So if you are looking at thought leadership as a function, because I know you've served in a functional capacity as thought leadership, and we'll dive into that too. But if you're a board member, and you want to make sure the executive team is thinking about thought leadership, what sort of questions should you be asking? And how do you identify, is there a gap that needs to be filled? Are they looking in the right places? What goes through your mind?

So many thoughts, Bill, because there's so much going on. So I don't presume that the executive leadership team has the bandwidth or the time to maybe read all of the things that I'm reading. So it could be just as easy as the Association of Certified Professional Accountants will put together news articles about what regulators are doing, what small businesses— it could be what's happening in business and industry. And it could be specific to an industry for which I'm on the board of. And I may say to whatever the leader is and say, hi, I just saw this amazing article from the Association of Certified Professional Accountants, and I'm wondering if you saw this as well. And if you did, what do you think about this as it relates to the new strategy that you discussed last week? And so I think when you're on a board, you've mastered the art of asking questions. Can you walk me through this? Can you share with me your thoughts? What are you thinking as it relates to that? Have you taken into account these new industry trends that have been occurring? And so you're asking questions in a way that is definitely noting that bright neon line between the day-to-day operational roles and responsibilities that they have versus your oversight role as a board director.

Well, and I love that in terms of the relationship to ideas that may be coming from the outside into the organization. And many times a leader may have their focus on day-to-day operations, right? And so doing that environmental scan and saying, are you aware and how does that relate? Are great questions to ask. Let's flip that as well. And let's talk about the organization's own unique thought leadership, the capacity to add to the conversation to clients, to customers, to the market they serve, whomever. How are you thinking about an organization developing its own thought leadership when you're on the board? What are you looking for?

I think that role is critical. And I think it's critical, Bill, because I've been in the role where it's important to have a point of view. I think it's a part of member value. I think it's a part of the customer or client value proposition for why they are engaging the goods and services of that particular organization. I think it shows that there are leaders who are credible, have experience and capability. I think it shows how you're differentiated versus your peers in that particular industry. I think it's important and it's critical. And it also would lend itself to a little more benefit of the doubt as it relates to emerging trends. Because with a thought leader perspective, then we already know you're thinking about what's happening with ESG. We already know that you're thinking about how students are learning, for instance, or memberships are being formulated and member value. We already know that you're thinking about it because you have a point of view. And I think That shows not only the board directors, it shows stakeholders as well as customers and clients that you're out in front and you are looking around corners. You're not just waiting for the industry to move along on its own.

If you are enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about the podcast, please leave a 5-star review and share it with your friends. We are available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and all major platforms, as well as at leveragingthoughtleadership.com. I'm looking forward to talking about thought leadership with you in a couple of instances. And the first one that I want to focus on is your experience of entering the world of thought leadership, because I think it resonates with how a lot of people and professionals are moving into the field. So I'm gonna ask you the question straight up. How did you come into the world of thought leadership?

Yeah. And first off, I'm pretty new to this world. So it wasn't until the later part of 2021 that I entered it. And frankly, it wasn't just later part of '21 till I entered it, but until I even really realized what it was. So my background, I'm an organizational psychologist. And so that's where I have my PhD in industrial organizational psychology. And I had been working in HR consulting for years and eventually found my way to SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. And there I was helping to lead the team in the certification exams. And so we certify HR folks and there are long exams as part of it. As the head of the exam development team, I ended up doing a lot of research, a lot of research about what makes a successful examinee, research just in the field in general, but also then getting into the marketing side. And frankly, there are lots of things that I ended up doing and was interested in —that was marketing, it was communications, and pretty far afield from the Director of Exam Development, which is what my title was. So eventually, after doing that for a few years and the team was growing and everything, my boss had said, "You know what? You're really not doing Director of Exam Development. You're kind of doing some other things, and you know, why don't we change your title accordingly?" So it was a little bit of back and forth there, but they had said, "Okay, you're now the head of HR thought leadership in the organization, and we're going to put you in the research group." And I said, "Oh, okay." And that was really the first time I had heard of thought leadership in a, like, in a traditional position title. And so, as people are wont to do, my first thing I did was when they told me that is, is I Googled, what is thought leadership? And it kind of came up with some things. And as you know, when you Google something like that, you know, you'll find some things and you'll find some things that are a little weird. But yeah, I think ultimately I came to the conclusion is, oh, this is something I am comfortable with, something I'm familiar with. I may not have called it thought leadership, but maybe I should have been calling it thought leadership.

And what you described, that process of curiosity when you were the director of the assessment development, right? Right. It sounds like your curiosity was pulling you out into, okay, what do I need to know about comms or what do I need to know about marketing about this exam? So was it curiosity or another thing that pulled you into those aspects?

I mean, it was curiosity and it was need. I was doing some of the research about like, like what makes an effective examinee or what are the benefits of being successful in our exam and in our certification. And there, once you start to get into the, where does this take you? What are the benefits here? That naturally lends itself into kind of a marketing conversation. And then it, then it was a matter of translating the research results into more of a marketing message. And at that time where our marketing group was going through some transitions, didn't have much help. And so I eventually said, okay, well, I'll just start writing marketing content and things myself.

Well, and that moves you from sort of the theory or the concept level to an applied level of how do I take these ideas and then use them to create greater impact, right?

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I would say for a while in my career, when I was an HR consultant, there was a lot of there was a lot of research being done and it was, I don't know if it was research for the research sake or it was, it was like validation research that we kind of felt obligated to do. And there was no aha. There was no kind of so what associated with it. There was just like, okay, we did this research. Maybe we correlated this thing with that thing and we found statistically significant results. And, and we were sort of pleased with that. But there was no real, you know, again, so what associated with it. It was just kind of, okay, that was sort of a nice to do.

Well, and research can sometimes sit sort of on its own in a bubble rather than connected to the organization and its purposes, goals, and mission, right? And so I think one of the things that thought leadership can do as a function, and I want to talk about it as a function with you, not only from what you're doing, but since you're inside of SHRM, looking at the thought leadership function from an organizational perspective, I think is important too. But here, you've got to bridge the research out to the audience that needs to hear it, right? It can't just sit in a white paper or on the shelf somewhere.

Oh, yeah, very much so. In fact, before I started in SHRM, so maybe 5 years ago or so, we had a research team and we were producing a number of white papers and they were more longer-form white papers. You would look at them and from an academic perspective, you could sort of— it checked a lot of boxes. Oh yeah, they— oh, the sample size was good and they talked to a lot of different people and, you know, the report itself was very comprehensive and it showed everything that was asked and all of the results. But you would spend a fair amount of time digesting that But at the end of the day, there, there was no, okay, now what, what am I going to do with this?

And how do you make it actionable to someone who's on a busy schedule, has limited time to sort of check and assume that all of the research hangs in? They want to assume somebody else has gone through, done the research, and checked that box. Now what do I do? Right? Yeah, right.

No, absolutely. And And I'm a, I'm a big proponent of everything that we're doing, everything that we're producing from like a content perspective, it always needs the "so what" message associated with it, preferably at the beginning and at the end. But just to go through a research exercise and then report on it, the academics are like that, but that's really not who our audience is. Our audience is HR professionals, HR executives, and then at a broader level, general business executives and kind of everybody else in the workplace. Those are the people that we're trying to affect. And as I list those people, professors in IO psychology programs, professors in HR management programs, they're not one of those people that we care about.

So one of the things— and you and I had a conversation on this— was you made a decision over the last couple of years in terms of focusing more effort around thought leadership for the product and being visible. Would you talk to us a little bit about how that idea came to be and then how it manifested?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm part of a very big company at Willis Towers Watson, but it's a small group within that company. And so like anyone, I'm sure you can imagine, there's always a challenge to get resources and attention. And so I experienced that. And so, you know, a colleague said to me, I can't take credit for this, said, you know, We could try to fight and get our marketing dollars, you know, with all the other parts of Willis Towers Watson, and we should do that. But also, you know, there's no reason we can't do our own marketing and tell our own story using social media, which has, of course, changed everything. And she introduced me to LinkedIn, which I really, you know, I was on, but I didn't know, hadn't really used much. I thought it was a job primarily just a job posting, you know, site, really.

And since you hadn't basically changed jobs in 25 years— exactly— like, hey, that's not to me, right?

I had no need for it whatsoever. And she said, no, it's where people are consuming content about the workplace. And so I checked it out, and I was like, yeah, you're right. And so I started posting my ideas, and I was really surprised and really thrilled at how interesting it was, the people I was able to meet, the connections I made, and the stuff I was consuming as well as putting out there. I mean, it's been a really positive experience and an organic one. You know, like, we have put nothing behind it. We have no funding or anything. I mean, I do it on my own. I write stuff on the weekends. I do it because I— first, I started doing it because I thought it would help the business. And it was a way to kind of get free marketing. But then I found out that I really enjoy it. It's fun. And I like sharing these ideas. And I learn things when I— just the act of writing stuff helps you, in my mind, you know, helps you focus and clarify your ideas. And then you get feedback and people share all kinds of things. So, I mean, it's, you know, I kind of miss the social media thing in a way because I'm a little bit older. You know, when I grew up, we didn't have all this stuff. And so I didn't really get it, but I get it now. I get it with LinkedIn, that's for sure. And I've also found, this is not an advertisement for LinkedIn, but I found that the discourse is really civil on LinkedIn. I mean, you don't see, at least I don't run into political disagreements and people being nasty and all that stuff. I mean, people are really open and share stuff and do it in a way that I think really healthy and productive. I mean, I've really been really impressed with how positive the environment is.

Well, and one of the things in terms of that discourse is by putting ideas out there, not only the act of putting out the idea helps you polish it, but also you get this amazing feedback from people who engage, who help you either sharpen the idea or they share a story And you can see the conversation's ripples spread, which I think is absolutely fantastic. Totally.

And I've got so many times when I've also gotten ideas for posts from reading things because they spark something in my mind and that leads to something. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. But also, I found that there's some general sort of, you know, I mean, it's improved my writing generally. Candidly, and my presentation skills. Because it's interesting, I mean, social media gets such a bad rap and there's obviously downsides to it for sure. But I mean, one of the things is it's a really pure marketplace of ideas. I mean, it's incredibly pure marketplace of ideas. If you put something out there, if it's valuable, people are going to like it. And if it's not, they won't. And it's on you to make it valuable and to present it in a compelling way and to think about how it's being presented and make sure that it's not too long and, you know, doesn't meander and doesn't use jargon people don't know. I mean, it's all— it's really— those are good rules of thumb in general, just in terms of how to communicate in a sales context, in any context. So, I mean, it's been great training in a way, right? How do you craft a message that'll have value and that'll make a point, make it clearly, get the right amount of attention? I mean, those are really useful skills in life.

You talk about being scrappy, and the one of the things that comes to mind in terms of that writing is when you're posting regularly, you learn which opening lines catch people's attention and which ones they just scroll past, right? And you may go, oh, I had a brilliant post and it was such a great idea, but nobody clicked the see more button.

Totally, totally. The analysis of it is really fascinating too. To see what worked and what didn't and how you can tweak it. And again, I mean, some of that is sort of superficial and transactional in a way, but some of it is really deep, right? Like, what do people care about? What's going to stop somebody? You know what I mean? So there's some phrasings and sort of techniques, if you will, that interest me to some extent. But more what interests me is like, what truly resonates? What is important to people? Right? What is worth their time to read and why. I mean, that— there's so much to learn, uh, from social media that way, and LinkedIn in particular. That, that's just been tremendous.

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