Five things on our thought leadership wish-list for 2011

Our annual evaluation of the thought leadership produced by the 25 biggest consulting firms in the world revealed that 2010 was not a vintage year. We suspect that unwillingness to invest in what was expected to be a shrinking market for consulting, coupled with the challenge of dealing with new, shorter formats (particularly videos and podcasts), was primarily to blame. But we worry that thought leadership has started to hit a brick wall. What clients want is reasonably clear: new ideas which provide relevant, evidence-based and actionable insights into their business. Some thought leadership does just that, but most doesn’t. And because the most-that-doesn’t is being published in such large volumes, there is definitely a sense that the bad is driving out the good. Cynical clients, faced with ever greater quantities of material, are ignoring all of it.

To reverse this trend, we’d like to make five suggestions for 2011:

1. Do less with more: Much thought leadership takes a single, second-rate idea and spins it out (business books are particularly guilty of this). A good idea should be the tip of an iceberg: supported by substantial research below the waterline. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be there.
2. Highlight the human: In the race to build corporate brands, we’ve lost the consultant in consulting. But, as social media is teaching us, people follow people, not organisations. If thought leadership is to lead, then consulting firms need to find, and make more of, their gurus. Most material, and certainly the best material, is typically written by a small number of people – and it’s about time for credit to go where it’s due.
3. Focus on the how: Consultants excel at telling people what needs to change and why, but have less to say when it comes to the how, largely because they’re concerned that they’ll be cannibalising their business if they do. It’s time to get over this: giving people practical advice will never be a substitute for helping them. Telling them what to do next is more likely to get them to do something.
4. Spend a second day in the room: It’s a point we’ve made before but it can’t be said often enough – too much thought leadership is written on the basis of too little actual thinking. A bit more effort – plus the humility recognise that your first draft will be no better or different to anything your competitors write – will pay enormous dividends.
5. Pull, not push: The consulting industry is edging towards a new paradigm, one in which clients “pull” the material they want, rather than have it “pushed” at them. There’s a lot of experimentation going on, but no winning strategy as yet. 2011 will be the year to get this, and get it right.

Those are, we think, the thought leadership challenges for 2011 – and we’ll be watching how firms respond to them with interest.