Peter Winick walks through how his firm builds thought leadership platforms using validated models. They surveyed 350 global leaders, created a diagnostic product and sales materials, and got accepted to present the model at SIOP.
Consider Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It's a platform built around a model, one that's evergreen, evidence-based, and relevant. Platforms built around a model tend to outperform ones that are based on a thought leader's personality. Covey's book was originally published in 1989, but the platform created by the book has endured for almost 30 years, even after the author's death in 2012. At Thought Leadership Leverage, we evaluate how your organization measures up to current industry standards of consulting, assessment design, training, and organizational development. And it all begins with an effective model, and models lead to money. First, we gather data and statistics and provide a Q-sort of the client's situation. A Q Sort is a systematic study using surveys and factor analyses to evaluate an organization. While I won't go into all the details— item-level findings, statistical validation, and verification— suffice to say it's a rigid process that pays big dividends. It's how we create a scientifically proven model, a tested platform for your ideas. But where do we go from there? Here's a recent example. Thought Leadership Leverage recently performed a Q Sort for one of our clients. Based on the model, we developed a way for them to quickly and easily find their clients' pain points and offer solutions. Finding pain points is like finding gold. After developing a compelling sales narrative, we created a sales deck that would get prospective buyers to lean in, to see their problems laid out clearly, and start talking about how our client could remedy their pain. We provided wireframes to help our client refresh their website, highlighting new content, new solutions, and the timeless model upon which they were built. Products manifested through a streamlined content deployment strategy. Products that were scalable, sustainable, and sticky. The primary new offering was an ability to do a complete and statistically correct organizational diagnostic. Our client sold this offering to their major client, broadly expanding their ability to create solutions within the organization. We surveyed more than 350 global leaders, personally interviewing a significant number and gathering statistics to place against the model's solutions. After analyzing the results, we provided a report. Our client presented that report to the organization's board. They were able to show major findings and provide recommended solutions, all backed up by concrete data. Such good data, in fact, that the model we created was accepted for formal presentation at SIOP, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The society was impressed with our research and the validation results of the model, and they offered us an opportunity to present our findings to their membership at their annual conference. We're pretty proud of that, but just as proud of the benefits that a solid evergreen model brought to our clients. Their results were amazing, and yours can be too.
