list-making as a tool of thought leadership - levy innovation · an e-book by mark le vy le vy in...

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MARK LE VYLE VY IN N OVATION LLC

List-Making as a Tool of Thought Leadership

an e-book byMARK LEVY LEVY INNOVATION LLCw w w. l e v y i n n o v a t i o n . c o m

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A LEVY INNOVATION EBOOK

COPYRIGHT ©2011 MARK LEVY

About the Author

Mark Levy is the founder of Levy Innovation LLC, a marketing strategy firm that helps thought leaders and entreprenuers increase their fees by up to 2,000%.

Marshall Goldsmith, who the London Times calls one of the world’s fifty most influential management thinkers, says “Mark helped me understand who I am, establish my brand, and communicate my brand to the world.”

David Meerman Scott calls Mark “a positioning guru extraordinaire.”

Simon Sinek says, “Mark helped me find my why.”

Fast Company Expert Blogger Cali Yost says: “Mark helped me rethink my entire business in a day. He’s a miracle worker.”

Before devoting his work fulltime to Levy Innovation, Mark served as Chief Marketing Officer for an Inc. 5000 experiential branding organization whose clients include Bank of America, Samsung, Time Warner, Tivo, Harvard University, and Stanford University.

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He has written for the New York Times, and has written or co-created five books. His book, “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content,” was a #1 bestseller on Amazon as a Kindle in the category of “Creativity & Genius.”

Mark has also taught research writing at Rutgers University.

In addition to being a marketing strategist and positioning consultant, Mark creates magic tricks and shows. His work has appeared in Las Vegas and on all the major television networks. He is the co-creator of the off-Broadway show, “Chamber Magic,” which is the longest-running one-person show in New York City, as well as the shows, “Miracles at Midnight” and “Theater of Wonder.”

To learn how you can expand your reach as a thought leader,

visit Mark at www.levyinnovation.com.

Or, write to him at [email protected].

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http://levyinnovation.com



Table of Contents

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

As a Thought Leader, You’re Hired for Your Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

List-making for Ideation in a Nutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

List-making for Ideation in Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Step #1: Brainstorm a Master List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Step #2: Explore Your Topic Through Multiple Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Step #3: Make Meaning From Your Fresh Vantage Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Step #4: Build an Inventory of New Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

What to Do Next . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Additional Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

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If you enjoy this eBook, please share it with others. Thank you.



List-Making as a Tool of Thought Leadership

The right ideas form the basis of your consulting engagements, media appearances, books, articles, posts, and speeches. Your ideas get you noticed in the marketplace, help you command enviable fees, and enable you to do good work on projects of significance.

When your career is predicated on ideas, however, a complication arises:

You cannot endlessly promote the same ideas.

As a thought leader, you’re hired for your ideas. In a sense, your ideas are your inventory. They’re your currency. Bluntly stated: Your ideas equal money.

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One reason is that, as the world changes, the effectiveness of your ideas–even your best ideas–can erode.

What once worked stops working. A second reason is that the marketplace habituates to your ideas. Prospects think they know what you’re going to suggest, so they turn to other people who tout mystery strategies holding greater promise.

As a thought leader, it’s important that you refine or even restock your ideas periodically, so your brand stays distinct, you stay sought-after, and your business practice stays lucrative.

How, though, do you create standout ideas and intellectual property to add to your business?

In my group coaching practice, an ideation technique I’ve used with clients is one you’ve likely used all your life: list-making.

When you were a child, you compiled lists of friends, favorite movies, and beloved songs. As you grew, you made shopping lists, to-do lists, and lists of goals and dreams. You probably still make lists.

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Why not?



A list constructively narrows your focus. It’s a lens that forces you to ignore most of the world, so you can examine and make decisions about an isolated sliver. A list also coaxes unarticulated and half-remembered information from your brain, so you can better see, understand, and act upon the information.

As useful as list-making has been as a gathering-and-prioritizing device, its worth is amplified when you use it as a tool to produce insights and ideas.

Here, then, in a nutshell is how to turn list-making into an ideation tool:

List-making for Ideation in a Nutshell

Next time you need new ideas, first consider your topic by making a list. Don’t make just one lone random list, though. No single list could give you a suitable view.

You want to look at your topic in a way that’s broad and, in a sense, disorienting. You want your topic to seem foreign to you, so as you study it, surprises, insights, and novel ideas emerge without much effort.

Instead of one list, create five-to-fifteen lists -- each with its own focus. These lists would have names like, “What facts come to mind about the

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topic?,” “What stories come to mind about the topic?,” and “In what ways can I reframe the topic?”

Spread the lists out on a table, look from list to list and item to item, and ask yourself questions, like

Based on your questions and close study, what will happen?

Human beings are meaning-making machines. In a matter of moments, you’ll find yourself making unexpected connections and seeing unpredicted patterns. New meaning will appear to you, because of the curious vantage point afforded by the lists.

You can then turn your latest ideas into “thought chunks,” which you can expand into products and services that support your thought leadership.

That, as I said, was the nutshell version of list-making.

Here is the same technique told in detail:

“What’s obvious here?” and “What’s surprising?”

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You’re going to brainstorm the title of every list you could possibly make about your topic. Let’s call the paper you record these titles on your master list.

Some of the titles on your master list might sound generic—like you could use them to study virtually any topic in the world:

• WhatdoIknowabout(thistopic)? • Whatdon’tIknowaboutit? • WhatareallthepiecesIcoulddivideitinto? • HowcanIreframeit? • Whataremyassumptionsaboutit? • Whataresomefacts? • Whatstoriesaboutitcometomind? • Whatimages? • Whatmetaphorsandanalogies? • WhatsuccesseshaveIhadinmyworkonit? • WhatmistakeshaveImade? • Whatexcitesmeaboutit? • Whatscaresme?

LIST-MAKING FOR IDEATION IN DETAIL

Step #1: Brainstorm a Master ListWhen you need fresh ideas on a topic, start by making an initial list. What type? A list of lists. I’ll explain.

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• WhatsmallexperimentsmightItry? • Whoaretheexpertsonthistopic? • WhocanIinterviewaboutit? • Whoshouldn’tIinterview? • Whatothertopicsdoesthisoneremindmeof?

Other titles on your master list will be topic-dependent.

For instance, if your topic is organizational culture change, some of the titles you could put on your master list include:

• Howwouldanorganizationknowifitscultureischanging? • Whydosomeculturechangessucceed? • Whatcultureshavesustainedthemselveslongest? • Whatmustanorganizationgiveuptochangeitsculture? • Whatdoesitgetinreturn? • Howdoyoumeasurethevalueofaculturechange? • Whatthingsmightbemoreimportanttoanorganization than culture change? • Whatareallthethingsyoucouldworkontochangeaculture? • WhatorganizationshaveIworkedwiththathavehadagreatculture? • WhatthingshaveIdonethatcontributedtoaculturechange? • Canyou“lockin”agreatculture,ormustitalwayschange? • Whatnon-humanculturescouldIstudythatmightgiveme insight into human culture?

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Take a few minutes and jot down as many titles as you can, as fast as you can. This doesn’t require copious research and deliberation. Compiling the master list is based on feeling more than scholarship.

When you’ve listed thirty titles or so, stop.

In making your master list, don’t over-think it.

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How do you know which titles to select? As you scan the master list, if an entry feels boring or unnecessary, pass it by. If an entry seems valuable, even if it’s for reasons you can’t explain, choose it as one of the lists you’ll create. Your gut has its reasons.

Write the title of each chosen list at the top of its own page, and fill in those lists.

You can fill in each list one at a time, penciling in as many items as you can until your mind runs dry, or you can haphazardly jump back and forth among lists, jotting down items in each as they occur to you.

What might a finished list look like? If we glance back at our organizational culture change example, one list might look like this:

Step #2: Explore Your Topic Through Multiple ListsLook over your master list, and pick a handful of lists you’d like to write. Maybe five, ten, or fifteen different ones.

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Why Do Some Culture Changes Succeed?

- The people understand the culture they want. - They understand the culture they have. - They think of the change as ennobling, and as being worth more than just a few extra dollars added to the bottom line. - They’re aware of the stories told about the organization in the past, and have ideas about the stories they want told about the organization in the future. - They have a game plan to follow. - They have metrics. - They find ways of living their future vision while in the present. - Everyone gets a say as to what the change will look like. - Dissidents are invited to participate in planning the change. - The change fits the organization’s overall marketplace strategy. - The change fits the organization’s customers. - The leadership team is committed to the change. - The leadership team is willing to be uncomfortable. - Middle management is able to get work done by doing what it needs to do, so it doesn’t have to subvert the fledgling culture.

Naturally, this list is only a sample. Yours needn’t look anything like it. Your own lists can be shorter or far longer. The items could be written so clearly that they would make sense to an outsider, or they could be truncated and slang-laden, so their meaning is understood only by you. Do whatever works.

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Ask yourself questions about what you see. Questions like:

• What’sobvious? • Whathaven’tInoticedbefore? • What’sright? • What’swrong? • What’smissing? • What’ssurprising? • What’suseful? • Inthespiritofplay,whatitemscanIforcetogetherthatdon’tbelongtogether? • WhatpatternsdoIsee? • What’sthisalladdingupto?

Start playing with answers – even if they’re only provisional answers and interim thoughts.

By giving your lists time, attention, and curiosity, you’ll see your topic from a perspective that’s wide and uncommon.

Step #3: Make Meaning From Your Fresh Vantage Point

Once you’ve finished filling in the lists, spread them on a table, shuffle them around, and look from list to list and item to item.

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A subject you may have devoted decades to will appear novel.

You’ll make fresh meaning from what you’re observing. You’ll notice connections between lists, spot associations among items, discover patterns, build hypothesis, recall stories, and formulate ideas.

Understand, you needn’t demand that your perspective changes. Seeing differently happens almost instinctively, because the unusual lists and active questioning have altered your vantage point. By standing in a new spot, what’s in front of you will be different. You’ll merely report on what you see.

While studying your lists and making connections among the items, write down your thoughts on a pad as they hit you. Don’t limit yourself to notions elegant or weighty. Don’t try for grand thoughts. Small is fine.

Get everything down.

It’ll be like the first time you saw your hometown from the air.

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While this might seem like a good place to stop, doing so would be a mistake. If you stopped now, you might encounter one of these three unfortunate possibilities:

1. A few ideas in your notes will stand out. You’ll excitedly begin fleshing these out, while forgetting the “lesser” ideas that could be made strong with polishing.

2. None of the ideas will yet stand out. You’ll put your notes aside, without ever returning to them for further development.

3. The ideas will be written in cryptic sentence fragments. When you return to them, you won’t be able to figure out what you wrote or meant.

To finish your list-making ideation session, you need to convert your fragmentary notes into, what I call, thought chunks. Doing so will give you a better handle on the ideas, and will help you store them for later use.

What is a thought chunk? It’s a piece of prose containing a complete thought.

That prose piece may be a sentence or two or three long. It may even stretch into a couple of pages. Its length isn’t critical. What is important is this:

You’ll now have a pad jammed with your ideas, observations, stories, opinions, and hypothesizes.

Step #4: Build an Inventory of New Thoughts

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The context from which you created it, and all the whys and hows surrounding it, would come rushing back to you.

A thought chunk, then, is a time capsule you create for the future you.

To illustrate what a thought chunk looks like, I’ll draw examples from my own work.

I’m a positioning consultant. Suppose, then, that I wanted to write an eBook on elevator speeches. To stir my thinking, I’d make a few lists. While mining those lists for associations and connections, ideas would pop into my head, and I’d scribble each onto a pad in as few words as I could, so I could keep the flow going.

Let’s say that one of the things I scribbled onto the page was the phrase, “Talking about a movie.” Obviously, the meaning of that phrase would be clear to me as I wrote it. But let’s say I didn’t review my notes for a month. By that point, the phrase’s meaning may have evaporated. I’d have lost a thought with potential value.

If you read one of your thought chunks—even ten years from now— you’d understand what it meant instantly.

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Rather than risk that, I take the following steps: As soon as my list-making session is over, I fire up my laptop, open to an empty document, and expand the “Talking about a movie” phrase into a self-contained thought:

When looking for distinctions that would fit an elevator speech, most people freeze up. They think finding distinctions is a special skill. It’s not. Most of us could do it in our sleep. Finding distinctions is no harder than talking about a movie.

If a friend asked about a movie you’d recently seen, you wouldn’t hesitate until you found the perfect thing to say, and you wouldn’t recount every scene.

Instead, you’d instinctively head for something distinctive:

’It’s about a robot that travels back in time to protect its inventor,’ or ‘It’s based on a play that won the Pulitzer,’ or ‘It’s the new Daniel Day-Lewis film.’

Finding engaging business facts to talk about in your business elevator speech is no different. It comes naturally if you let it.

I’ve now captured that idea as a standalone thought chunk. Its meaning is clear and will remain so. I could use the idea now, or a decade from now. It’ll always be at the ready.

The “talking about a movie” chunk you read might sound like polished prose for a public readership. Not all thought chunks need to sound like that, though.

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Some chunks will read like private notes that weren’t meant to be seen by others. For instance, here’s a thought chunk I wrote about Boston Globe writing coach, Donald Murray:

“I read something by Donald Murray that struck me. He said if he got a top-paying assignment, he would get it done in the following way: four weeks of research, two hours of writing, and two weeks of rewriting. That’s wild. In his overall process, writing the first draft is a micro-step.”

When I first wrote that chunk, I didn’t expect to share it with anyone, so I didn’t worry about developing the idea or the flow of information. I said what I needed to say and moved on.

Again, the purpose in creating a thought chunk is to hold onto a complete thought, so that down the road you don’t have to play the “What did I mean?” game.

As long as the chunks you write accurately rekindle the thoughts you originally had, what they look and sound like is up to you.

Finish your ideation session, then, by converting all your ideas into chunks to store on your computer. The reason: You’re building an inventory of fresh

ideas, observations, and stories.

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In a few days, you might try another list-making session—using different lists, so you can study your topic through even more perspectives.

That, or you can test your ideas in the world, and see which might be expanded into a book or post, or as part of a new product or service.

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I suggest trying the process immediately. That way, you’ll get a feel for what it’s like and what it can do for you.

Begin by picking a topic about which you’d like some fresh ideas, or by choosing a problem you’d like to solve. Then, go through each of the four stepsoutlinedinthiseBook(Step#1.Brainstormamasterlist.Step#2.Explore your topic through multiple lists. 3. Make meaning from your fresh vantagepoint.4.Buildaninventoryofnewthoughts.).

Also, if you visit my website, www.levyinnovation.com, you’ll find a

list-making workbook that lays out each step, and includes room for

your handwritten answers.

What to Do Next

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http://www.levyinnovation.com

http://www.levyinnovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/List-Making_Workbook_v1.pdf



If you just wanted to give a subject some top-of-the-mind thinking, you could do it in under an hour. That is, you’d brainstorm five lists in a couple of minutes, then you’d fill them out in twenty minutes, followed by a half an hour to look them over and jot down ideas as they come to you.

True, that hour doesn’t include turning your raw thinking into thought chunks. Also, it forces you to race through the creation and study of the lists you make. But an abbreviated process can still be effective. At times, a tight deadline focuses the mind and inspires good work.

If you wanted to take your thinking in more unusual directions, however,

consider the following—lengthy—route.

Take twenty minutes to brainstorm your master list, an hour to choose and make your lists, and another hour to study your lists and jot down ideas. Finish up by taking an additional half an hour to create your thought chunks. Total time: about three hours.

Additional Notes

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How long should the list-making process take? That depends on your goals, preferences, and schedule.



On one hand, three hours is a long time to spend ideating. On the other hand, it’s a small price to pay for producing ideas that may elevate your thought leadership platform.

A tip about the lengthier route: You may want to break up the individual session into several days. In other words, make your master list and choose which lists you’ll use on Monday, fill in your lists on Tuesday and Wednesday, study the lists, jot down ideas, and record your thought chunks on Thursday and Friday.

An advantage in spacing your session out: You can throw yourself into the early steps, without worrying about how your energy and focus is holding up in the later steps.

Consider revisiting your lists days, weeks, or even months after you originally made them.

Why? Time can generate fresh perspectives and ideas. By coming back to the lists, say, two weeks after your initial ideation session, your fresh eyes will see a dozen connections that eluded you the first time.

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During group coaching sessions, I’ve lead clients through a cooperative problem-solving approach using list-making. Here’s what it looks like:

One member of the group briefly discusses a problem on which they’d like help. The group then jointly follows the list-making process—all in support of solving that one group member’s problem.

Together, they brainstorm a master list, fill in the selected lists, and come up with associations, patterns, solutions, options, and so forth.

The participant whose problem is under discussion ends the session by talking about what they heard, what they intend to try, and when they’ll put that solution into action.

A couple of points to keep in mind:

1. The group version requires more time than the solo version. Why? Once the participants fill out the lists, they’ll need time to explain what they wrote. The relevance of each item won’t be self-evident.

2. I wouldn’t do more than two group problem-solving sessions in a day. The process is powerful yet draining. If other participants would like the group to focus on one of their own problems, schedule those sessions for other days.

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There are other options for using list-making as part of a group brainstorming session or strategic planning meeting.

For instance, ask each attendee to bring one, two, or even three completed lists to the meeting, so you can hit the ground running.

Once I’ve written up a thought chunk, I drop it into a separate document on my computer which holds similarly-themed chunks.

For instance, if the chunk pertains to positioning, I drop it in a previously-created document called “Positioning.” If the chunk deals with live presentations, I drop it into a document called “Live Presentations.” I have a document for every subject I commonly write about. They have no-frills titles like “Marketing Strategy,” “Customer Experience,” “Sales,” and “Writing Technique.” Each document contains dozens, even hundreds, of chunks on a single topic.

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Keeping an organized inventory of thoughts is different than saying, “I’ve got ideas scattered throughout my computer.

I’ll search when the time comes.” Therein lies madness. You’ll feel pressured, and 90% of the time your search will come up empty. By saving and organizing chunks as you go, you’re tending your lawn regularly so it’s always thick and green.

An added benefit of this chunk approach: You’ll remember your ideas and stories better.

The material will be more actively stored in your brain, because you’ll be paying more attention to it and will make judgments about it as you move it into documents.

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At times a chunk won’t neatly fit a single category.

No problem. Cross-index it by dropping duplicates in as many documents as you wish.

As I’m combing through a document and come across a chunk, I ask myself two questions:

1. “How does this particular chunk relate to the subject I’m writing about?”

2. “What subject can I write about based on this chunk?”

Make sense? The chunk either supports something I’m in the process of writing, or I think about what new piece I could write starting from that chunk.

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COPYRIGHT ©2011 MARK LEVY 27 / 27

Credits

In the late 1990s, I read a short online article that mentioned how numerous lists could give you perspective on a problem. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find that article again. My thanks, though, to its author, whose identity is unknown to me. I’ll continue searching.

Some of the ideas and prose in the “thought chunk” section of this eBook comes from my book, “Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content.”

Thanks to Bob Croston, of RAIN Group, for urging me to write this eBook, and for his astute editorial comments.

Thanks to my friend and client, Jake Jacobs, for helping me brainstorm the “organizational culture change” lists that appear in this eBook. Jake, who wrote “Real Time Strategic Change” and co-wrote “You Don’t Have to Do It Alone,” is an influential leader in large-scale corporate change. If you’re interested in that field, his books are must-reads.

Thanks also to Bob von Elgg, of Bigfish Smallpond Design, who illustrated and designed this eBook with thoughtfulness and skill. His efforts enhanced the text, big-time.

If you enjoyed this eBook, please share it with others. Thank you.

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