So far in our Thought Leadership for Tomorrow (TLFT) series, we’ve looked at thought leadership as a distinctive form of content marketing. We’ve seen how it is carefully aligned with corporate strategy, too, and it is this ‘magic triangle’ between marketing, thought leadership insights, and corporate strategy that propels a company to innovate and connect.
But most thought leaders aspire to do more than this. While thought leadership needs to do the heavy lifting of indirect sales and influence, they also want to use thought leadership insights to power corporate purpose to make change.
Our TLFT roundtable of leading names in the thought leadership ecosystem discussed the meaning of corporate purpose – and how they carve out a space for it in their companies.
More than strategy
When we think of purpose, we usually think of ESG – sustainability, DEI, and corporate responsibility. But our panel said it was more than that. Corporate purpose is intimately tied to corporate strategy and is an aspiration to make social change in the world, whether that’s through technology, ideas, or social impact.
“We want to do thought leadership not thought followership,” said panel member Ophelie Janus, Global Head of Thought Leadership of Siemens, echoing the universal view that thought leadership was more than a marketing or sales strategy. She argued that thought leadership was pivotal in driving corporate purpose – in her role that means how technology can solve societal challenges and “shape the world we want to live in in the future”.
It’s about changing ideas to change the world, said Francis Hintermann, Growth & Strategy, Accenture, Global Managing Director, citing Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. And that’s what he tries to do at Accenture – deliver on the promise of technology to create change.
This perspective explains the unique role of thought leadership within corporations as a space to reflect, draw on insights, and, says Cindy Anderson, Global Executive, Thought leadership Engagement and Eminence at IBM, “experience collective intelligence”.
The resounding agreement on the relationship between thought leadership, corporate purpose, and wider social change prompted panel chair Yogesh Shah, CEO of iResearch services, to ask, “Should we add changemakers to our job titles then?”
But let’s look at this idea of collective intelligence and what it means within enterprises.
Drawing on collective intelligence
In practice, thought leadership can often be siloed, viewed as a branch of marketing or corporate insights, with individuals or small teams working independently to produce assets.
But our panel members were exemplars of companies taking a different approach.
Internally, they all agreed on the need to draw on organizational expertise. But how?
Tom Fleming, Director of Global Thought Leadership at PWC, says it’s critical to have a team that’s aligned with corporate purpose. And how you do that is to recognize that there is not only corporate purpose but individual purpose too. If you create an environment where people can express that and be themselves, “things can happen”.
Janus agrees, saying there is a “sweet spot between the purpose of the company and the values of colleagues.” Thought leadership is a way of drawing on these values, showing how they can contribute and help activate their voices.
Every single expert or specialist within your company can be a thought leader. She argues that this is an essential part of creating trust with your audience because “people trust people.”
Reaching out
The panel says that thought leadership is a way to generate conversations externally. In one way, it does have a direct link to sales. Putting thought leadership in the hands of consultants and salespeople helps them have conversations with clients outside of the sales transaction, said Anderson.
But it is also about having broader conversations about issues that matter with the wider business community and even policy networks. Hintermann showed the relevance of investment in thought leadership because of current geopolitical and tech disruption. Companies must have a say because of the business risks posed. He argued that companies have got to change, though trust in their capacity to drive change is diminishing.
Reaching out to the community with big ideas and meaningful data may be one way to increase agency. But reaching out also means packaging thought leadership to maximise the possibility of it being consumed. Anderson said their research showed executives spend between one- and three hours consuming thought leadership from between one and five sources they trust. That’s not much time.
How do you ensure yours cuts through, to maybe take a half-an-hour slot? By experimenting with format, they argued, including shorter, more visual and even more fun assets like video. In a novel move, Accenture’s data app, Accenture Foresight, shares research that has not been ‘data storied’ so executives can use it how they want.
Promoting corporate purpose
They all agreed that getting the time, space, and resources to produce thought leadership was never certain. As Fleming pointed out, leadership changes, and not all leaders will get why it matters. You always need to persuade.
The rest of the panel agreed. You always need to show the business value, says Hintermann. Be entrepreneurs and make sure you are in the room presenting to clients. The 25% of your work dedicated to corporate purpose is proven to be more impactful with clients.
50% of the work you do is creating and 50% promoting, said Anderson, and half of that promotion time is justifying your existence. IBM have a testimonial programme. They also collect data on the value of thought leadership – one finding is that 67% of consultants and sellers believe it helps them develop more pipelines. Finding internal advocates of thought leadership will also help.
And it’s about “community management,” says Janus. That’s keeping colleagues up to date with your programmes and how they can use them to get a foot in the door – even and perhaps especially with visionary thought leadership.
The ROI of change-making
Inevitably companies will want to see a return on their investment in thought leadership, and it’s up to teams to ensure they have the evidence to understand the ROI of thought leadership aimed at corporate purpose.
But thought leadership is more than calculating direct returns. It is about anticipating coming disruptions, avoiding future risks, shaping conversations, having a social impact, and innovating in ideas and communication.
The most unusual and experimental projects can influence your audience and benefit a company’s ROI. Says Janus, citing their creation of a digital twin of a concert, “You need to dream as well.”
