Thought leaders must have a genuine story to tell

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A few years ago, Amy O’Meara, Amnesty International’s USA Director of Business and Human Rights, had the following message for businesses: ‘Show us that you are trying…and we will take you seriously and work with you over time to help you become socially responsible. It’s cool to be green but don’t exaggerate…have a genuine story to tell.”

For me, in those few sentences aimed at companies and their corporate social responsibility programs, she inadvertently delivered a message to prospective thought leaders and company thought leadership programs - have a genuine story to tell.

True thought leadership absolutely is about being genuine. The quick-fix research packaged as thought leadership in order to drive a bit of media coverage really isn’t going to cut it in the long run.  It may help drive a great PR campaign but please don’t label it as thought leadership.  

There are some excellent examples of companies that have well and truly integrated their thought leadership into their businesses, aligned them with their values as an organisation and importantly linked them to the needs of their customers.  They do it because they genuinely care about the issues and challenges their customers face.

In the process they take one step ahead of the competition and set themselves apart as the ‘go to’  experts in their field.

Without a genuinue story to tell, this very quickly falls short as the conversations you, your business leaders and your sales staff have with your customers will not reflect the depth that a true thought leadership position should deliver in the chosen topic in your sector.

Those campaigns with genuine intent reap real, long-term benefits:

Think long and hard about any thought leadership campain upon which you embark and ask yourself:

• Is it genuine i.e. goes it go to our values and what we want to be as a business?
• Is it compelling for our customers/clients i.e. does it deliver them insights to help them?
• Is it compelling for our own staff?
• Will it differentiate our brand from our competitors?
• Is it something on which we can deliver?
• Does it have senior management buy-in?
• Does it have a champion/s?
• Can we put budget behind this?
• What are the measurement criteria?

One Response to “Thought leaders must have a genuine story to tell”

1. Reeshof says:

   November 17, 2010 at 00:00

   Hey thanks for yet another very interesting post. Where do you find your inspiration for all this ? – Tilburg