Why most thought leadership is rubbish - and how to make it work better

Whether it's for a CEO or Prince Harry, a ghostwriter needs to have a big mouth, be pushy and unafraid to argue

The words ‘Prince Harry’ and ‘thought leadership’ are rarely found in the same sentence. But recently the California-based Royal exile’s ghostwriter revealed something that goes to the heart of how to make a CEO look smarter than they actually are.

Here's what JR Moehringer wrote in the New Yorker about the art of getting inside someone else’s story and then telling it:

‘You want the world to know that you did a good job, that you were smart. But, strange as it may seem, memoir isn’t about you. It’s not even the story of your life. It’s a story carved from your life, a particular series of events chosen because they have the greatest resonance for the widest range of people…

One of a ghostwriter’s main jobs is having a big mouth. You win some, you lose most, but you have to keep pushing, not unlike a demanding parent or a tyrannical coach. Otherwise, you’re nothing but a glorified stenographer, and that’s disloyalty to the author. Opposition is true Friendship, William Blake wrote, and if I had to choose a ghostwriting credo, that would be it.’

In my experience, the most forward-thinking leaders know that better than anyone. They want to be pushed, to have their ideas challenged, to coax them from their safe spaces and help them find something more interesting to say.

One of my US CEO clients began our ghostwriting collaboration with his head of PR sitting in on our calls, to ensure we stuck to the messaging strategy. The first session was a disaster because of the PR’s involvement: ‘No, Grant, that’s not what we want to discuss…too challenging I think…maybe rephrase that…what’s the point of that personal question…’ The thought leadership was destined to become bland PR.

I asked for it to be just the two of us, CEO and ghost. My role, I said, is to listen and react, find a better story by asking smarter questions. And I won’t know those questions until you start talking. That way, we’ll co-create thought leadership that says something interesting and unique. It will be you – but with better grammar.

And it worked. I’m not their stenographer but their pain-in-the-backside journalist, pushing and prodding to find a compelling story that says something interesting. That’s what thought leadership should be – a story about a person that reveals something of who they are and, at the same time, imparts business wisdom.

I’m lucky that journalism gave me those skills and I’m even luckier that there are enough business leaders out there who understand that thought leadership is not another form of PR. It’s storytelling.

Here are three tips for making it work:

1) Have perhaps three pre-planned questions, based on your hours of research. If you’re doing a good listening job, you probably won’t ask them all but they’ll be a useful crutch.

2) I interview my clients as a journalist would and then ghost the material. The first 15-20 minutes will be nowhere near as good as the last 15-20 (and the ideal thought leadership interview should last 45 minutes). The beginning will be full of pre-planned answers but, by the end, the subject is relaxed, lucid and beginning even to challenge themselves.

3) Write the first draft as fast as you possibly can to ‘get’ the voice. It will be rubbish but the words will be true. Now get creative. The second draft will be worse than the first because you’ll editorialise too far. The third and fourth get to a better place.

Not Montecito but, still, a better place.

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If you really want to know why Russia is the way it is, watch this brilliant series of documentary films from Adam Curtis. Traumazone recently picked up a BAFTA for Best Specialist Factual and it tells the story of the country from 1985-1999 through the lives of people, not politicians. There is no voice-over, just stories. We’re not force-fed a narrative, instead we create it in our own minds based upon the words of real people. It’s brilliant storytelling.

LISTEN TO THIS

I love Holly Tucker’s interviews with CEOs and entrepreneurs, trying to find the human story behind the business success. Holly found the small business marketplace Not On The High Street and her Conversations of Inspirations podcast has more than 3.6m downloads. Holly also promotes a strong element of business purpose, finding those who are doing good for society alongside making profits.

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Working with insight teams has made me more aware than ever of the way we treat data. Journalists have a habit of spinning numbers so far that it means something completely different. Below is a snapshot of Fraser Nelson in The Spectator magazine, twisting the data to imply the UK has welcomed so many foreigners that we have more than the US. Discounting that nearly everyone in America is descended from an immigrant, the Migration Policy Institute says that 28% are immigrants – if you include those not working. You can read the rest of the article here and I’ll be keeping my eye out for other journalistic sleights of hand. It’s also worth noting that many immigrants to the UK are from Hong Kong and Ukraine, on government-sponsored programmes.