Thought Leadership | Richard R. Ramos

Foreign Richard Ramos. And welcome to Family Leadership and Community. Listen, today I want to talk to you about a subject that is not. Seems to be me, not to be talked about too often, but I think it should be talked about more often. And I want to share it with you. I have some notes here that I share usually with, with leadership classes that I'm teaching, and that has to do with the subject of thought leadership, of being a thought leader. So first I want to talk about, you know, what is a thought leader, and then I want to talk about how to be, how to become a thought leader. Okay, so this quote from Albert Einstein, he said that we cannot solve today's problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them. We cannot solve today's problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them. I mean, think about that. Just that in itself, you know, kind of makes you think, like, what is he talking about? But in the world of leadership, or when you're dealing with problems of a community, problems of a company, problems of an organization, or if you're looking at something that you want to create, you want to innovate, you want to, you know, take something that already exists and, and innovate it, change it up, or you're starting to create something new. All of those kinds of things require thought leadership. Sometimes, you know, people are seeing things a certain way, and then a thought leader is. Helps you to see it a different way or maybe even a better way. So thought leaders help us to think about our thinking. They help us to have a paradigm shift sometimes. So that's what I mean by thought leadership. Okay, so let me share some of these principles that I have here, and, and then I'll talk a little bit at the end about how do you become a thought leader. Okay, so number one, some of the qualities thought leaders are able to make sense out of chaos. Make sense out of chaos. And again, that could be on a society level, government level, business level, educational level, religious level, you know, family and chaos. And a thought leader is able to step back, what some people call, and take a balcony view. Say, for example, you were at a party and there was all this chaos going on. And if you were on the floor, you're not, you know, you're not going to be able to see everything that's going on. You're going to be able to see what's right in front of you, maybe, maybe a little bit to your left and to your right. But if you're, you're at a big party with an open floor, there's a lot going on. And what thought leaders do, you go up into the balcony and you look down and you see the whole thing so that you can make sense out of chaos. A second thing is that thought leaders are evocative. Not provocative, but evocative, meaning that the things that they're sharing, the thing that they're saying, they cause you to, you know, either bring back memories that you had or bring feelings to you that maybe, you know, were kind of dormant in you, and they kind of evoke you in a way that causes you to think in a different way. Third, another thing is that thought leaders are somebody who are very persuasive. They persuade you to. To again, think differently, see things differently, step back, maybe even convince you, or persuade you to change your mind, change direction. But all of this is for the good. All of this is for the better, okay? A thought leader, the motive is to improve things, to take it to a different level, a better level, to grow it, to enhance it. That's the kind of thing the thought leaders are doing when I talk about these qualities. Another thing thought leaders do is that they translate information into inspiration. And, you know, inspiration is so important. Inspiration is different from motivation. You know, you can motivate somebody, you know, and they get excited for the moment. They get excited in the event. They get excited, you know, as that event is happening, and then at the end, but then, you know, when the dust settles, a lot of times they just kind of go back, the fire goes out, and they just go back to, you know, what they were doing before. Not the motivation is not good. Motivation is good, but it's not the same as inspiration. Inspiration is something that breathes life into people. Inspiration is something that lights the fire within. It blows on the spark in people that maybe it was there and it was kind of just laying there, almost dead, kind of, in a way. But inspiration, you breathe life into that, and all of a sudden that spark turns into a flame. And that's what thought leaders are able to do with information, is turn it into inspiration. And that causes people to. To take off in. In a great way. Another thing is, thought leaderships isn't knowing what's new. Thought leadership is knowing what's next. Remember this? Whatever is new is old. Think about it whenever, whatever you see on the shelf, it's new to you, but it's old to the people that created it, because they're already thinking of what's next. And the moment you buy that thing and you leave the store, it's old already. You know, our iPhones, the moment we buy it, a car, the moment you drive it off the lot, you know, whatever is new is old. Because thought leaders, they're done with that and they're already thinking, you know, what's next. They're not living in the moment or in the past. They're not riding the coattails of the past, as they say. They're already looking to tomorrow. They're thinking about the next enhancement, the next innovation, the next improvement, or the next creation of something that's going to better the quality of life for people, improve the community, improve the company, improve the organization, education, all those kinds of things. Okay? Another thing thought leaders understand is that content is not king, but it's concept in the right context. Not content, but it's the concept in the right context. Somebody said, I forget who it was. There's nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come. So in other words, the content was there, but it was the wrong time. The concept was there, but it wasn't in the right context. But when the content and the concept that you have, for example, is in the right context in the right time, in the right era, in the right company, in the right situation, the context, that is powerful. That's what thought leaders understand, its concept in the right context. All right, Another thing is that thought leaders do not only know what's needed, but they also figure out what should be first. What's needed, but what's priority. You know, it's kind of like in an organization we know what's needed, but what do we need to focus on? What's the most important thing we should be focusing on right now? What's going to help us succeed right now? What's going to help us not only succeed, but stay successful for the long term. That kind of thing. Another thing, thought leaders do not accept the result of research as the end of thinking about it. You know, this, this happens all the time. Matter of fact, I just was recently hearing this commercial where now they're telling us, telling families really that if you fed your baby with Similac, you know, formula, that that may have been the long term result of disease, of cancer and all this other stuff. I mean, imagine that. Imagine, you know, when, of course, you know, long time ago, women just breastfed their children. That's just, you know, there was no other solution. But then, you know, through science and technology and growth, they started coming out with this formula, you know, whatever brand it is. And so now we're feeding babies, little babies in Place of, you know, mothers who can't or just, you know, not wanting to breastfeed, feeding them this formula as they call it. Well, now they're saying maybe it wasn't such a great idea. And this happens all the time because there's something about people just wanting to worship data and evidence based results and worshiping at the altar of data and research. But see, a thought leader, just because there's research and data behind some study that was done, that doesn't mean you should stop thinking about that particular issue or that particular product or whatever it is. And that's why thought leaders are important. Another thing, thought leaders distinguish themselves from the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom, you know, it's just so easy to jump on that bandwagon. You know, this is the way it is, this is the way it's always been and this is what we're going to do. Well, maybe that isn't the way it is and maybe that isn't the way it has to be. See, there are some things that have to be. Like for example, you know, the ocean. You're going to have tides, that just has to be, that's never going to change. It's going to be high tide, it's going to be low tide, you're going to have waves. This has to be that way. The sun comes up, the sun goes down. You know, that has to be that way. But there's other things that do not have to be the way they are. What are those things? Well, you know, that's what thought leaders come up with. They understand it's not always the conventional wisdom that is necessarily the best, especially for the day and hour and the time that we're living in. So that's another thing. Another one of these is that thought leaders are intuitive and they understand their industry at a deeper level. They have an understanding at a deeper level and they pay attention. They give priority, or we could say value to their intuition, which is something that science doesn't like intuition. A lot of people, you know, it's all about the rational mind. It's all about logic. And you know, 1, 2, 3 equals, you know, what does that equal? 6, whatever it equals, you know, the linear thinking. But intuition, see, that's something different. I love what again we go to Albert Einstein, listen to what he said. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. One more time. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind, a faithful servant. We have Created a society that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift. See, thought leaders are intuitive and they have a deeper understanding of. Of what's going on, whether that's a family, a church, a mosque, a community organization, a company society. That's why we need thought leaders. A couple more. A thought leader, you function as a change agent. When you come along, things change. Steve Jobs was a change agent. If you ever know anything about Steve Jobs and, you know, reading, I read his biography, and the guy was a genius for all the people skills he lacked, because he did lack people skill. But the guy was a genius for what he fought up, what he saw in his mind. That could be what the computer could be. You know, how what the ipod could be. All these songs could be held in a little the size of a transistor radio and put in your pocket, the iPhone. All these things changed the world, changed society. I mean, think about when we used to play vinyl records and everybody bought records. Yeah, stacks and stacks of records. And then somebody came out with the cd and the cd. Oh, my God. Now all of a sudden it was all about CDs. But then that didn't last too long because then they came out with digital, you know, so those are things that are thought up by somebody and you're a change agent. Okay? And that could. It could be social things. It doesn't have to be a product. It could be a lot of things. But you function as a change agent, as a thought leader, you shape values and perspectives, and that's a great thing to be able to help people see the value and the perspective that just improves your life, improves the quality of life, improves the culture of the organization or family and things like that. You influence future decisions. And the last thing that I have here is that. And these are just some of the things that. There's more. But, you know, these are the things I usually share with. With. With leaders and leader development. You provide unique perspective not found anywhere else. And that's why people come to you, because you are a thought leader. So how do you develop? How do you become a thought leader? Just. Just five things, Five simple things. Again, you could read about this, there's books on this. You could, you know, look on the Internet about thought leadership. You know, look it up. There's all kinds of things about it as far as becoming a thought leader. These are the things I've practiced and things I like to share. Anybody can do them. The first one is creating myself as a thought leader is to think about my thinking. Now what I have Written down here is think about your thinking about your industry. Because again, we need thought leaders. We need fresh thinking. We need fresh thought leaders in government, we need fresh thought leaders in education, we need fresh thought leaders in media, and we need fresh thought leaders in communities, in organizations, in families, as parents. So whatever your industry might be, I just encourage you and challenge you to think about your thinking. Think about how you think about. You could even start with yourself, how you think about you and then your family and then the community and on and on and on. That's what a thought leader does. You spend time thinking about your thinking. Second here is that you. You read wide and deep outside your industry. This is something that has been a real benefit to me, that I learned just intuitively. I just started reading things that have nothing to do with my nonprofit organization. Nothing to do with the parent leadership classes that I teach and training, the parent mentors and coaches that I teach. The executive directors that I coach. Has nothing to do with that. I'm reading stuff that is outside of what I do, what my profession is in my industry. But those books I read magazine articles and different things, I learn a lot from them. I get ideas. I pull principles from that thing. Like, for example, I read a book about design. You know, how designers, how designers think and how they work and what they do. Designing products, designing and changing, you know, the way a hairbrush looks, the way a chair looks, the way furniture looks, you know, designer. And I don't know why, I don't know. I just thought, you know, that'd be interesting. Let me read about that. I read book, read books by magicians. You know, why am I reading a book about, I'm not a magician, I don't do tricks. Why am I reading about that? Well, again, and I could go on and on, those things for whatever reason just interested me. But as I read them, I always end up finding some. Some nuggets, some pearls, some. Some principles that I can use either to implement into what I'm doing or examples and illustrations of what I can help deepen the point that I'm making. Say if I'm teaching a lesson, just things like that, thought leadership. Third is to stay connected to the people that are serving other people. You know, they call them, sometimes they call them frontliners, but these are the people that are actually out there in the field doing the work. Now, being in an executive role like I am, you know, I used to be out in the field. I used to be out in the streets. I used to be hunting down young People and gang members and finding them at midnight and going to parks and different places where they were hanging out and partying. And I'd go and talk to them and try to encourage them and do things like that, you know, and other things I used to do out in the community, so to speak. I used to be a community organization organizer, knocking on doors and things like that. Well, I don't do those things much anymore. I'm more in an administrative executive role. And so one of the things that's important to me, I have to stay in touch with those people. I want to know what's going on. They're my ears, they're my eyes. They help me keep the pulse of the community. And that's something I don't want to lose. That helps me as a thought leader so that I stay relevant, so that I'm not irrelevant like a lot of the leaders that we have in this country. I won't go there, but it just seems like a lot of the leadership that we have in this country at the highest levels is they're out of touch. I don't want to be out of touch. So you have to stay in touch with those that are on the ground, that are working, doing the real work with the people, with the community or whatever it is in your industry. Stay in touch with them. I always use this example. If I was a principal of a high school, the people that I would always want to be talking with and have relationship with would be like people who work in the cafeteria, because they're the ones that are out there. They every day, they see the kids, they hear, they watch. And they could really help me think about what's in the best interest of the school, what are the policies we need to do and change and grow in all those kinds of thing. And the last thing I'll share with you is, well, there's two more things. Number one is test your assumptions. Always test your assumptions. You know, don't. Don't assume that your assumptions are correct. Maybe they're out of date. Test your assumptions. And the last one is to pay attention to and value your intuition, which I already talked about. So that's about thought leadership. That's what thought leaders do. That's what they bring to the table. That's what they bring to the organization, bring to the community. And those are just five principles that I follow of developing myself as a thought leader. So again, Richard Ramos, I hope that helped you. This is family leadership and community. And I'll see you next time. Thanks.