Leveraging Thought Leadership
Peter Winick and Bill Sherman
Welcome to the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast, a beacon illuminating the paths and possibilities of thought leadership. With your guides, Peter Winick and Bill Sherman, we will embark on a journey into a captivating world where ideas converge with strategy and insight.
Where will thought leadership take you?
In each episode, we engage with thought leaders from diverse backgrounds. Whether it's professional keynote speaking, writing your own thought leadership book, investigating the niche expertise of specialized consultants, or crossing mental swords with distinguished academics, our guests collectively paint a vivid mosaic of thought leadership's multifaceted potential.
Through nuanced perspectives and rich experience, our talented co-hosts aim to offer you views of the ways independent thought leaders navigate success, elevate talent, and change company culture – while simultaneously examining how organizations harness the power of thought leadership to catalyze innovation and nurture sustainable growth.
Peter Winick is your guide through the realm of independent thought leadership. For the past two decades, he has helped individuals and organizations build and grow revenue streams through designing and growing their thought leadership platforms as well as acting as a guide and advisor for increasing business to business sales of thought leadership products. Peter is the Founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. His clients come from a diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. They include New York Times bestselling business book authors, members of the Speakers' Hall of Fame, recipients of the Thinkers50 award, CEOs of public and privately held companies, and academics at prestigious institutions such as Yale, Wharton, Dartmouth, and London School of Business.
With a keen eye for detail, he delves into the intricacies of crafting personal brands, fostering genuine engagement with audiences, and expertly monetizing one's expertise. From the artistry of crafting keynote speeches that resonate with audiences to the strategic deployment of bestselling books as conduits for inspiration and insight, Peter's guests offer a treasure trove of strategies for creating value and impact and driving revenue through thought leadership.
Bill Sherman specializes in the exploration of organizational thought leadership. He examines how companies conceive, curate, and deploy thought leadership initiatives, and how those initiatives benefit the orgs and the people who work within them. Bill listens to the stories and advice of industry leaders and their triumphs within the competitive business landscape. Whether through the dissemination of white papers that shape industry discourse, webinars that educate and engage, or insightful executive blogs that offer thought leadership at the highest echelons of corporate governance, Bill's guests provide illuminating perspectives on the evolution of organizational thought leadership and its pivotal role in shaping industry paradigms and perceptions.
Bill concentrates on organizational consulting and business expertise, investigating organizational thought leadership and its effects, from instructional design and learning product development to marketing strategy and execution, to organizational development and transformational consulting. He enjoys working with business leaders, speakers, authors, academics, and other consultants, connecting their ideas organizational platforms and enterprise-ready product development.
As the series unfolds, Peter and Bill will lead us through a nuanced exploration of the latest trends and advancements in thought leadership. From the transformative impact of technology on communication and collaboration to the evolving preferences of consumers in an increasingly digital marketplace, they will dissect the shifting landscape with precision and insight. Moreover, they will shine a spotlight on emerging modalities that are reshaping the contours of thought leadership, from the ascendance of virtual events as a cornerstone of engagement to the growing influence of social media platforms as conduits for thought dissemination and audience interaction. Through their discerning analysis, they will reveal how thought leaders can adeptly harness these trends to amplify their reach, captivate new audiences, and maximize their influence in an ever-evolving business environment.
Whether you find yourself at the height of your career as a seasoned thought leader, or whether you stand at the threshold of possibility as an aspiring entrepreneur, the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast offers an enriching voyage of discovery.
Join us as we unravel the enigmatic secrets to success in the vibrant realm of thought leadership, where ideas have the power to shape perceptions, drive change, and inspire action. Together, let us explore how you, too, can engineer value, evoke impact, and cultivate revenue through the sheer power of your ideas and expertise.
Welcome aboard.
Where will thought leadership take you?
In each episode, we engage with thought leaders from diverse backgrounds. Whether it's professional keynote speaking, writing your own thought leadership book, investigating the niche expertise of specialized consultants, or crossing mental swords with distinguished academics, our guests collectively paint a vivid mosaic of thought leadership's multifaceted potential.
Through nuanced perspectives and rich experience, our talented co-hosts aim to offer you views of the ways independent thought leaders navigate success, elevate talent, and change company culture – while simultaneously examining how organizations harness the power of thought leadership to catalyze innovation and nurture sustainable growth.
Peter Winick is your guide through the realm of independent thought leadership. For the past two decades, he has helped individuals and organizations build and grow revenue streams through designing and growing their thought leadership platforms as well as acting as a guide and advisor for increasing business to business sales of thought leadership products. Peter is the Founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. His clients come from a diverse set of backgrounds and specialties. They include New York Times bestselling business book authors, members of the Speakers' Hall of Fame, recipients of the Thinkers50 award, CEOs of public and privately held companies, and academics at prestigious institutions such as Yale, Wharton, Dartmouth, and London School of Business.
With a keen eye for detail, he delves into the intricacies of crafting personal brands, fostering genuine engagement with audiences, and expertly monetizing one's expertise. From the artistry of crafting keynote speeches that resonate with audiences to the strategic deployment of bestselling books as conduits for inspiration and insight, Peter's guests offer a treasure trove of strategies for creating value and impact and driving revenue through thought leadership.
Bill Sherman specializes in the exploration of organizational thought leadership. He examines how companies conceive, curate, and deploy thought leadership initiatives, and how those initiatives benefit the orgs and the people who work within them. Bill listens to the stories and advice of industry leaders and their triumphs within the competitive business landscape. Whether through the dissemination of white papers that shape industry discourse, webinars that educate and engage, or insightful executive blogs that offer thought leadership at the highest echelons of corporate governance, Bill's guests provide illuminating perspectives on the evolution of organizational thought leadership and its pivotal role in shaping industry paradigms and perceptions.
Bill concentrates on organizational consulting and business expertise, investigating organizational thought leadership and its effects, from instructional design and learning product development to marketing strategy and execution, to organizational development and transformational consulting. He enjoys working with business leaders, speakers, authors, academics, and other consultants, connecting their ideas organizational platforms and enterprise-ready product development.
As the series unfolds, Peter and Bill will lead us through a nuanced exploration of the latest trends and advancements in thought leadership. From the transformative impact of technology on communication and collaboration to the evolving preferences of consumers in an increasingly digital marketplace, they will dissect the shifting landscape with precision and insight. Moreover, they will shine a spotlight on emerging modalities that are reshaping the contours of thought leadership, from the ascendance of virtual events as a cornerstone of engagement to the growing influence of social media platforms as conduits for thought dissemination and audience interaction. Through their discerning analysis, they will reveal how thought leaders can adeptly harness these trends to amplify their reach, captivate new audiences, and maximize their influence in an ever-evolving business environment.
Whether you find yourself at the height of your career as a seasoned thought leader, or whether you stand at the threshold of possibility as an aspiring entrepreneur, the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast offers an enriching voyage of discovery.
Join us as we unravel the enigmatic secrets to success in the vibrant realm of thought leadership, where ideas have the power to shape perceptions, drive change, and inspire action. Together, let us explore how you, too, can engineer value, evoke impact, and cultivate revenue through the sheer power of your ideas and expertise.
Welcome aboard.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 5, 2023 • 37min
The Democratization of Understanding| Mahan Tavakoli | 529
If Generative AI is fed all writing on the internet, then when you ask it a question, it can give you a good answer. Or at least an answer that is good enough. For this reason, good enough is no longer good enough. To discern the role Generative AI can play on the future of thought leadership I've invited Mahan Tavakoli to join me. Mahan is the CEO of Strategic Leadership Ventures which helps people become the sort of leader people want to follow. He is also the host of the Partnering Leadership where you can learn the leadership journeys of successful CEOs and the top global thought leaders. Our conversation with Mahan starts with getting an understanding of both generative AI and what we would call good ideas. From there we explore how asking the right questions is the secret to getting useful knowledge out of either. While asking the right questions of AI can allows us a great understanding of the vast amount of data in our organizations, the right questions of an idea can discover the power of differentiation and niches. If you're looking to expand your use or understanding of AI and how we can unlock the power of our ideas this is a great episode for you. Three Key Takeaways: · Part of thought leadership is marrying the ideas of others to see new patterns. · When we think we know the answer, we don't ask the simple fundamental questions that can unveil new insights. · The power comes from the differentiation and the niches. Rather than the belief that you need to go wide.
Nov 2, 2023 • 32min
Moving from Corporate to Solo Thought Leadership| Dan Pontefract | 528
Moving from internal thought leadership to being a solo act means having to take on a lot of new roles. Marketing, research, and publishing all fall on your shoulders now. Are you prepared? Today our guest is Dan Pontefract, who, after a long prosperous career at companies like Telus, struck out on his own as a leadership strategist, change expert, keynote speaker, and award-winning author. His fifth book Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team that Flourishes will be released in November of 2023. Dan shares his journey from working at Telus as Chief Learning Officer, using the company as a lab with the ability to real-time test ideas to teaching the models he helped create internally, to external companies guiding others through leadership development and culture change. As an author much has changed over the ten years since his first book was published. Dan shares his experience both with untrustworthy and fantastic partners in publishing. In addition, he explains why you should be ready to market the book yourself, the big differences between self, hybrid, and traditional publishing! If you are just getting started or about to break out from corporate thought leadership, Dan provides valuable advice for thought leaders at any stage! Three Key Takeaways: · When doing market research look at others in your sphere at your level. Then look at those above you and determine what sets them apart. What can you learn from what they are doing? · Be continually and continuously adding to your body of work. · Thought leadership can take a product that might not land you a meeting, and open the door to a more interesting conversation.
Oct 29, 2023 • 30min
Learning to Lose Powerfully | Don Schmincke | 527
What happens when the tools we use to analyze and take control of our environments become the cause of our destruction? Is your company using the tools they have at their disposal? Or are the tools using you? Our guest today is Don Schmincke an explorer, researcher, and partner with The Pacific Institute. He is also the author of Winners and Losers: Entrepreneurial Lessons from 30,000 CEOs on How to Come Out on Top, which teaches entrepreneurs how to win powerfully! Our conversation begins with Don telling us how he went from almost dropping out of high school, to learning technology and ultimately strategy and leadership. While working at Johns Hopkins he began to find an astonishingly high failure rate in management theory – and he knew he could help. Don goes on to explain the seduction of tools. Why we believe they can save us, allowing us to analyze and control our environments. And how we can easily fall to letting the tools use us because without altering human decision making through true transition, the tools won't change the choices we make. With such a high failure rate many might think diving into the entrepreneurial pool would be foolhardy. However, Don gives us hope by telling us about losing powerfully – taking the loss and learning from it, picking ourselves up and becoming stronger from it. Three Key Takeaways: · It doesn't matter how good your theory is if it doesn't have a measurable impact. · We get seduced by our tools because we think they will save us. But without changing how we think the tools won't change the outcome. · Formulation without execution is just a good idea on a shelf.
Oct 22, 2023 • 34min
Creating Engagement for Ideas| Scott Gould | 526
How does a thought leader get an audience to take notice, remember, and actively use the content you are putting out? To get a firm grasp of exactly what engagement means and how to get your audience there, I've invited Scott Gould to join me. Scott is a consultant, speaker, and author of The Shape of Engagement: The Art of Building Enduring Connections with Your Customers, Employees, and Communities. Our conversation begins with Scott not only defining what engagement is but how he has broken out into three types. Head, Hands, and Heart engagement – while each is very different, we learn how they act as building blocks on each other to create deeper connections between you, your idea, and your audience. A big part of having an audience become engaged is presenting an idea that is easy to understand and remember. Scott shares his process for distilling an idea down to the essentials, which sometimes means blowing the idea up to something huge first! In this episode Scott offers great insight for taking ideas from brainstorm to living at the heart of an audience! Three Key Takeaways: · Properly defining the topic you want your thought leadership to center around is one of the biggest jobs that you have. · The name of an idea is incredibly important. People engage with ideas when it is easy to remember the essence of that idea. · Sharpening ideas to the finest point often involves discarding ideas that you like but don't connect with your audience.
Oct 19, 2023 • 24min
Taking Evergreen Content to New Heights | Christian " Boo" Boucousis | 525
The past few years have seen shake-ups in almost every aspect of thought leadership. Big challenges can - and have - pushed a lot of people out of the field. But what some call a "big challenge" is everyday fare to a fighter pilot. Our guest today is Christian " Boo" Boucousis, a former fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force. He's an inspirational keynote speaker, author, and CEO of Afterburner; an org that helps corporate teams execute with the same precision and accuracy as elite pilots. After Boo's Air Force career ended he reinvented himself numerous times by transforming his ways of thinking and working using the skills he acquired as a fighter pilot. This eventually led to the purchase of Afterburner a globally connected group of current and former fighter pilots, U.S. Navy Seals, and other elite military professionals that use the discipline and strategy developed in their previous careers to enable organizations to achieve new levels of success. Much of the Afterburner experience came from in-person speaking, which instantly became impossible when COVID shut the world down. Boo, shares how he led his company through the turbulent time, moving to virtual mediums to deliver immersive movie-quality experiences. As an author and speaker, Boo is keenly aware that audiences have a shrinking attention span. He shares advice for understanding the differences between information, knowledge, and wisdom – and how to walk your audience through those phases over various modalities using humor and emotion to keep the audience's attention. If you are in need of advice for making your content soar, this episode is the one for you. Three Key Takeaways: · As a thought leader you should be infinitely curious. Not just about your domain but about how you communicate that information. · You need to be versatile with your content. Delivering important and valuable information but also including humor and things that maintain the audience's attention. · We remember what we feel more than we remember what we see or hear. That is why you have to evoke an emotion that is connected to the message.
Oct 12, 2023 • 31min
Advice for Life and Leadership | Mark Goulston | 524
Death is a natural part of life, but our ideas and dreams can live beyond us - and be an inspiration for generations to come. Today, our guest is a dear friend and mentor, Dr. Mark Goulston. During his long career, Mark moved from being a psychiatrist and FBI hostage negotiator to being one of the most highly regarded coaches and keynote speakers in the business. He helps companies and individuals gain deeper self-awareness, and grow as leaders. Now Mark is facing his most difficult challenge yet. Having been diagnosed with a condition that leads to acute myeloid leukemia, Mark is learning not only to accept his diagnosis, but also, how to walk the road ahead with grace. More, Mark is sharing that knowledge, and the lessons he's learned through life experience, to help others. Mark discusses how he is able to have a good death because he has lived a good life. But what does a good life look like? Mark shares how he is focusing on the things that really matter in life, the need to hire and connect with people that share compatible values, and how his life as a psychiatrist has translated to corporate leadership. In this frank and open conversation Mark gives advice for life, death, and leadership. It's a must-experience episode that celebrates life, and how our journey can help others - even generations after we have passed on.
Oct 8, 2023 • 41min
Using Inclusive Language to Communicate More Effectively| Dr. Suzanne Wertheim | 523
Part of thought leadership is making the invisible, visible. When that happens, it can challenge beliefs and make people uncomfortable and defensive. So, how can you break through feelings, and make change deeply significant to that future? Our guest today is Dr. Suzanne Wertheim, the Founder, and CEO of Worthwhile Research & Consulting, where she uses her expertise to improve hiring, organizational culture, engagement and retention. She is also the author of The Inclusive Language Field Guide: 6 Simple Principles for Avoiding Painful Mistakes and Communicating Respectfully, which is filled with real-world examples and exercise that can help boost your inclusive language skills. As a linguistic anthropologist, Dr. Wertheim has been researching and studying the intersection of language, power and culture for decades. She shares how linguistics, like thought leadership, is about recognizing patterns. Accomplishing this can be a difficult task, as people realize they might not be as inclusive as they had believed. Suzanne explains what inclusive language is and why it matters. We learn how language is social action and the building blocks of how we create, maintain, and end relationships. She shares the six principles found in her book that can be worked on in order to better our own use of inclusive language. In addition she gives real life examples of how the wrong wording can cause a deal to go south, as well as how inclusive language can repair that damage. If you want a better understanding of inclusive language as well as how you can move from being able to identify those problems to acting differently this is a must listen episode. Three Key Takeaways: · Just because something is simple to describe does not mean it is easy or effortless to implement. · Inclusive language is like learning any new language. It takes time and practice to become good at seeing it and changing behavior. · A lack of inclusive language can force great employees to leave for greener pastures. This is one of the many reasons leaders need a better understanding of what is acceptable language.
Oct 5, 2023 • 21min
Scaling Ideas for Impact | Jennifer Dulski | 522
Thought leaders are often torn between scale and depth.Scale allows you to reach a large audience, while depth allows you to have massive impact. So, where's the happy medium? Today's guest is Jennifer Dulski, the CEO and founder at Rising Team which blends experience and science to help leaders ensure people on their teams feel valued, motivated, and connected. In addition, she is the bestselling author of "Purposeful: Are You A Manager or A Movement Starter?" The book provides invaluable resources for leaders who want to step up and make a difference. Jennifer has had a number of roles in her career from entrepreneur for a non-profit start-up, high school teacher, and executive leadership roles at Facebook, Google, and Yahoo. We learn how all of these roles have given her the experience to take her passion for creating a happy and successful high-performing team to scale using technology. Often thought leaders believe they have to stick to a single domain, but Jennifer shares how her varied career has allowed her to adjust, grow, and change her domain expertise over time as her own experience has developed through both success and mistakes in the field. Our conversation wraps up by discussing putting content into various modalities and how using LinkedIn, being an educator, and writing a book all play together. Jennifer explains how the book and book talks helped to tighten up her content and give her credibility while bite-sized portions of that content go out on LinkedIn to have larger engagements with her audience. Jennifer shares useful information on taking ideas to scale and leveraging a book to create a deep impact on your audience. Three Key Takeaways: · You don't have to be a thought leader in only one domain. You can grow your thought leadership in multiple domains as your experience grows. · Having successes and mistakes are both part of the thought leadership journey. · A book can help you solidify your ideas and present them in the clearest way, which you can then build additional product offerings.
Oct 2, 2023 • 30min
Taking New Ideas to Market | Pete O'Heeron | 521
How do you get people to think about new ideas?And then, how do you move your audience from thinking - to buying? To examine how ideas go from brainstorming to industry-changing, I've invited Pete O'Heeron to join me for today's podcast. Pete is the Founder and CEO of FibroBiologics, a leading biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing fibroblast cell-based therapies. We kick the conversation off discussing how Fibroblast has gone from a few peer reviewed papers a year to dozens each week in the span of a mere eight years. Pete helps us understand exactly what fibroblast cells are and why the amount of interest and important research for them has spiked. Not only is research into fibroblast cells new but the work Pete is doing at FibroBiologics is going in directions no one else is. Pete discusses why they are doing work no one else is and how the research and science are the mechanics that steer the direction of the company. Working on such new and cutting edge ideas often means having to convert people from no, to yes. Pete shares how their scientific discovery board is made up of world leaders in stem cell research, which gives the work they do a great deal of credibility. This creates an opportunity to start conversations that spark interest in what the company is doing and allows the science to sell itself as people dig into these new ideas. Pete offers great insight into how to take new niche ideas from prototype to market and have conversations that draws your audience in. Three Key Takeaways: · Allowing research and science to dictate the direction of your company can take you in new directions. · Getting new ideas out means starting a conversation with the points that will spark interest. After that follow with research and science that can't be disputed. · Having a board within your company that is filled with respected professionals will give the new ideas you produce a level of credibility that others might not have.
Sep 24, 2023 • 30min
Starting Thought Leadership Early | Vaishali Dialani | 520
An investment in thought leadership - for yourself or your org - compounds over time. Starting earlier in your career will have a greater impact. So what's stopping you from getting started? For today's episode, I've invited Vaishali Dialani to chat with us. Vaishali is a Senior Customer Experience Strategist at Konabos Consulting; a full-service, end-to-end, digital experience solutions agency. Vaishali paints a picture of her earliest journey in thought leadership by participating in everything she could find, and every event possible – often leading events, even though it was early in her education and career. By taking these initiatives she was able to get speaking and presenting opportunities that strengthened her confidence and opened the door to networking prospects. Meeting a connection at a conference is great but you need to follow up to foster that new relationship. Vaishali shares how she does active outreach, reaching out via LinkedIn to grow her network. She goes beyond people she has met in person and explains what you should be looking for in a contact before reaching out. Finally, Vaishali shares how growing up in India and being from a blended family gives her unique perspectives that she uses to enhance her Customer Experience (CX) work. We learn how her personality not only affects the CX work she does but also how her personality is blended directly into the work. In this episode Vaishali shares incredible advice for starting the thought leadership experience, excelling at customer experience, and nurturing a network of value. Three Key Takeaways: · Thought Leadership doesn't have to be industry changing ideas. If you have thoughts and opinions - share them! · You are never going to know everything about your field of expertise. Share what you know now, you can share now. · People don't invest enough in learning. You can never know enough and can always be sharpening your craft.
