Unlocking Team Potential Through Leadership Alignment | Julie Williamson | 588

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. Today, my guest is Julie Williamson, and Julie is a leading voice in how organizations link together communication, design, strategy, sales, marketing and service to deliver sustainable growth results using, using both traditional and forward-looking resources. There's a lot of interesting things that she's done over the years, but as opposed to talking about them, I'd rather just, rather just talk to her. So welcome, Julie.

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Yeah. So let's start with the journey. How did— tell me about the logical and linear path that took you to the Athol Haven.

Because everybody's path is so logical and linear, right?

Exactly. Not in this, not in this business, which is what kind of makes it fun.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Do you know, Peter, it's so funny. I was thinking about this just a minute ago when I was trying to figure out what to do in college. I remember saying to my parents, you know, I think I'm going to get an English degree because I loved reading. I loved writing. I was, you know, kind of in that space. And somehow the conversation came up of, you know, you might want to be able to get a job. After college. So I ended up with a degree in information systems, which was great, served me very well. It was the '80s. There weren't a lot of women in tech. I had the opportunity to get into a big systems integrator and do some amazing work around the world. But it pulled me away from writing and kind of this space that I really enjoy being in where I'm exploring like, how do we share ideas in a way that helps us to grow and also makes a contribution to how other people are thinking about solving problems. So that was my linear path, right? Was I took a big detour early in my career, but I'm really grateful for that because it gave me great content to pull from as I'm thinking about how do I share my experiences and insights and learnings from a technical perspective as well as a business perspective and a social science perspective.

Right. Yeah. Interesting. I, I, I took a quasi-practical approach and only took a minor in English.

Yeah. I think I have a minor in English actually. Yes.

Yeah. 'Cause then everyone said, well, what are you gonna do with that in business? You can't do anything with that in business. Like, I don't know. I spend a lot of time in business now and I write a lot and speak a lot and actually read a lot. So it's probably not all that, it's not just Shakespeare anymore. So anyway, so tell us a little bit about the work that you do, sort of the types of clients that you support and what you're, types of problems you're helping them through?

Yeah, I always like to say our best client is a frustrated leader. If you think your team could be doing better, faster, more, whatever, um, that's the space that we lean into. And we bring to that from a thought leadership perspective an intersection of a deep appreciation of the complexities of business, a lot of background obviously in tech, and the social science dimension of organizational communication and how do teams really connect and come together so that they can deliver as well as possible as a team.

So when you say frustrated, you know, frustrated has a connotation that's, that's sort of negative. But I, as you're, you were explaining that, I'm thinking, well, the opposite of that might be complacent. And that's the worst thing for a leader to be, right? Is to be complacent. Probably something they should be, and maybe frustrated is a strong word, but less than satisfied with or whatever. Because if you're sitting there as a leader, go, everything's perfect. Like, get what? You know, along comes something and you're going to get knocked off your perch.

Yeah. Well, and I think complacency is in that we're doing just fine space.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, it's fine that decisions take too long to make. Eventually we get there. Or it's fine that, you know, we're at 90% instead of 95% of where we should be. So that's actually not a great client for us if they're, if they're satisfied with being fine. But if you're frustrated and you feel like you could be doing again more, better, faster, whatever it might be, that's a space that we can really lean into.

Well, and you know, I would argue that, you know, how many organizations today can be in that complacent mode where, I mean, it used to be lots and lots of organizations, big entities that can be in that, you know, what's your goal this year? Yeah, we wanna grow 2% or, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, Everyone's going through digital transformation. Everyone's trying to figure out how to integrate AI. Everyone's going through what does it mean from a cultural standpoint in a work-from-home revolution? Like, what are the intergenerational— like, you can't just sit there and go, yeah, we could just be, you know, big fat insurance company that does a little bit better each year. It doesn't— the world doesn't want that anymore.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah.

So what are the business models then for you? Like, how do you Who's paying you to do what? What does that look like?

Yeah, so we bring our thought leadership around this idea of leadership alignment and how do we bring aligned teams into doing better than any one of them can do individually out into the market through both publication. You know, I'm writing a lot of articles, podcasts, things like that, but also we get hands-on experience that informs all of that work through the consulting work that we do. So we're working hands-on with teams who are in pursuit of better, who are looking to be better at how they deliver to their customers, to their colleagues, to their communities.

Got it. And what— how long does an intervention usually last? What does it look like?

Yeah, yeah. Our programs typically last anywhere from 3 to 12 months on average. We know that— we know that change and transformation doesn't happen in a catalytic moment. So people say, well, can't we just do a 1-day workshop? And you're like, no, that's not how people work.

So, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're not in there 40 hours a week, right? So it's a very methodical, um, it is intervention focused but not trying to cram all of the work into 1 day. So we know things have to happen over time.

Got it. And talk to me about, I how you decide to develop and deploy the thought leadership, right? Like, you know, some people like to write long form, some people videos. Like, what's, what's your cadence? What do you, how do you like, uh, in that regard?

You know, that's such a great question. Like, how, how do you think about that? And immediately what came to mind for me is a few years ago I was at a mountain biking clinic. This comes back to this question, by the way. I was at a mountain biking clinic And the instructor said, you don't get better by going out and riding really big challenging trails. You get better in the parking lot by doing skills and drills. And then you take those skills that you learned and you bring them into the big ride that you want to do, right? And I think writing or bringing your thought leadership out into the market is a lot like that. You have to find ways to practice and to, you know, build up that cadence and that muscle so that when you want to do something long form, you have the skills to do it, right? You have the ability to do it. And so I really do a lot of short-form things like, what do we do? What are we doing on LinkedIn? Are there opportunities for us to do, you know, 400 to 600-word articles or placements? I'm involved with the Forbes Business Council where you can pop things out there in their expert panels, right? So how do you find those opportunities to build up your muscle, right? And build your voice in that kind of space. So that when you have the opportunity to do something more long form, the, the skills are there.

Got it. If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL. And share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. What are some of the things you've been doing more of or differently, let's say the last year or two that are A, working, or, or the flip side of that, that you stopped doing 'cause they just weren't working anymore?

Yeah, yeah, we do a lot of our own longer form pieces that we use within our client engagements. So as we're working with clients, we want to help them to understand the process or understand the next step that's available for them. One of the things that we found is that that's not as effective from a business development or marketing perspective because they're almost too technical in nature. And so they're too specific to the process that somebody might be in with us as they're doing a program with us. So I've really had to push to think about how do we create better context for what can feel like very dense and technical material. And that shift has been, that's been a good push, I think, for us, a good healthy push to say, how do we make things more accessible for somebody who's not deeply in our programs or language.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Love, love that. And, um, what about consistency/frequency of publishing? Because some people, uh, are obsessive when it comes to sticking to a routine. Others, it's an inverse of when they're busy. Hey, if I'm not busy, I might as well knock stuff out. And then I've seen everything in the What, what, what works for you?

Yeah. I think that if you're too busy to write today, you're gonna be too busy to write tomorrow.

Oh, exactly. I love that. I love that.

Yeah. So that pro— I think that answers your question, right?

Right. Well, so what do you do with that then? So do you force yourself to block out time to say, uh, on such and such a time, that's when I'm gonna—

Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty disciplined about it. I try to make sure that I'm writing something at least 4 or 5 times a week. And that something could be just a LinkedIn post. It could be a response to a prompt on a publishing site. It could be, um, something that we're sending out to a client to help them with some work that they're doing. But how do I make sure that I'm being really disciplined, um, that I'm putting something out into the world on a regular basis?

Yeah. And I think what people fail to realize sometimes is we're looking for that immediate hit. I've seen this firsthand and I've seen it with clients where let's say you always put something out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, whatever, right? And maybe it's a video on Tuesdays and an article on the— whatever it is, right? And you know, you get the response that you get, et cetera, et cetera. And for some reason there's a Thursday that you're traveling or on vacation, you miss it and people start emailing you like, wait, I didn't get the thing today. Like people almost, not that they depend on it, they're gonna live, but they're like, everything okay? Like that's part of my routine is— Right. And so post this thing on Thursday that I kind of enjoy. I might not comment every time. I might not engage with it any time.

Yeah.

But I kind of expect it from them. And when they violate that expectation, I'm like, whoa, what's— I'm, I'm a little shaken from that.

Yeah. I love that observation that, you know, that you're being, I guess, successful in this thought leadership space if when your routine is disrupted, it disrupts other people's routines.

Yeah.

Right?

Well, 'cause there's that, I don't know if it was Jim Collins who was Good to Great or one of those that's, you know, Who would really care if your entity ceased to exist? That's like a horrible question, right? And the reality is most people wouldn't care. But like when you get a little signal like that, that like, hey, I tell you that I read your thing every Tuesday, but it didn't come this week. And it's like I wanted that little, that little tidbit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great measure, right? I love that.

So what are the challenges that you're facing now relative to the business and the thought leadership, and what is your strategy to overcome them?

I think one of our challenges is that we do struggle as a business to draw a straight line between thought leadership pieces and business results for us. Yeah, right.

Great, great answer. Yeah.

Yeah. So that, that's a question of is it working from a marketing or business development perspective? As well as making a contribution to the people who we want to have an impact on. And I think at some point you have to lean into that contribution piece and say, I'm going to keep making what I believe is a contribution to the greater conversation about how do leaders and teams be as effective as possible. And even though I can't draw a straight line necessarily into our business results, we work on that, you know, as you, I'm sure, know how to do behind the scenes around tracking clicks and where are things coming from and asking people how did they hear about us and so forth. But it is hard to do that. Again, just hard to end up with that straight line.

I think the measurement piece, you know, as marketers, we're all trained that, you know, what's the call to action, what's the impact, what's the results? And then now we've got all these tools that literally you can send out your newsletter and within seconds watch the open rates pop and the click rates pop and, you know, the dashboard and the like. Whoa. Okay, well, if it's a direct response piece, that's what you need to be doing. And I say you have to measure thought leadership in the aggregate. What's our total spend— time, energy, effort, money— over a period of time across a variety of formats? And what can we attribute to it directly and indirectly? Right. So sometimes what will happen is I think that we obsess too much over engagement and likes and shares because it's easy. It's a lazy marketer's like, oh, how many clicks did I get? Oh, click, here's an answer, right? And more people than one would tend to like to think are what I would call lurkers. They're sitting there, they're reading the content, doing it, but they don't feel the need to comment or engage or share or whatever. But then when they come back to you, they're ready to rock and roll, right? So someone might be sort of in the mezzanine for 2 years and then all of a sudden, bang, they reach out to you and they're ready to do business because they've been following you and they know what you think and how you think. And like, we get this all the time where folks that were not even, they're not even on our radar, calling and say, hey, I've been on your newsletter for 3 years or following your stuff and we need to talk 'cause I think you can help me now. Like, how do you measure the value of that? Right? Like, that's exactly, that's an interesting one to think about. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I really appreciate your idea about measuring it in aggregate, and I think that's something that, that we could take on as well.

Yeah. And it doesn't mean that if there are things that you know are losers that you don't sort of reallocate resources. But it's really, really hard to say, oh, we did that white paper and it came out 3 weeks ago. What's the impact of that? Well, that one I would say you'd have to measure over, you know, 6 months, 9 months, maybe a year, sometimes 2 to get the full, like, what is the shelf life of the thing? And how do you extract value from it? So it's not, I don't have all the answers there, but it's, it's, it's something that we all wrestle with.

Yeah, exactly. And I think just knowing that, right, this is, this is a challenging space and it's a challenging question. I think is helpful for people.

Yeah. And then I, I think the other thing is some of us think that we constantly need new stuff, new stuff, new stuff. Mm-hmm. And I think that you get to a point where you've created a lot of stuff in a variety of modalities and formats. Reuse it, repurpose it, recycle it, you know, get it out there again because that one post that you did on LinkedIn that killed it 2 years ago, guess what? Only a small percentage of your followers even saw it. Put it out there again. Either, either with a minor tweak or without, and assuming it's evergreen, give it another shot. You don't have to create the new masterpiece every time, right?

Yeah, not everything has to be original. Well, in that space, I love that. I love that idea. You know, there's also something I think to be said for brevity, right? That not everything has to be, you know, 900 words. And it, as we were talking, it just reminded me, I remember all the way back when Twitter first came out. Do you remember they had the 140-character limit? And there was some comedian, I think it might've been Conan O'Brien, I can't remember exactly, who said, you know, basically anyone can be brilliant in a 10-minute monologue, but it takes a genius to be funny in 140 characters, right? And so, you know, how do you continue to challenge yourself to get your message out there in a way that's super digestible?

Well, in that super digestible piece, the vision that I always have for that is what is the use case? So, mm-hmm. I love to read books. I read 2 books a week, but that's not— I wouldn't say that's abnormal, but that's not typical, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

How are people consuming information? I think you have to look around you and say, listen, even if you were, you know, like me, you're a dork that reads a lot of books. I walk into Starbucks, I order my coffee, I'm standing online, I'm watching people and they've got, you know, 73 seconds to wait for their latte. What are they? They're scrolling. And if I can't shake them out of this trance with something quick and punchy, they're not going to immediately— that's not the context by which they're going to sit there and say, oh, this is a good time for me to open up a 28-page white paper with charts and infographics and all that. There's a time for that later. So it's also sequencing. Can I hook them early with something pithy and short and slick so that then go deeper later on? I think that's— we need to think about how people are consuming things.

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And one of the things that I think we did early on that was not as effective is we have a lot of really great content on our website that's deep. Right? So people can go out there and it backstops, um, somebody who is like, oh, I want to figure out who this Carrickens group is all about, what this Carrickens group is all about, right? They go out there, they're going to see a lot of really well thought out and deep work, but it doesn't— that's not getting them there, right? So it's like that, it, it's just that backstop, but we put a lot of time and energy into that and felt really good about it. But then the question was, okay, how do we get people there, right? And that doesn't come from the deep and, you know, hefty stuff. It comes from, as exactly like you're saying, something that can catch somebody in the 75 seconds that they're waiting for their latte.

Yeah. Love it. Well, this has been fantastic. Appreciate your time, Julie. Thanks for coming on today.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Good to see you.

To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.