How do you produce an idea that changes the way people think and work?
This was one of the key questions that Tom Davenport, Larry Prusak, and I set out to answer a decade ago in our book, What’s the Big Idea? Creating and Capitalizing on the Best New Management Thinking. Part of our initial response was to rank management gurus according to the measurable influence of their ideas; we were the first researchers to use scholarly methods to do so. We also analyzed the top 50 ranked HBR articles of all time (by reprint sales).
The breadth of article topics was large and the sample of rhetorical styles diverse. Shifting from Drucker’s erudition and measured tone to Hammer’s revolutionary and provocatively violent declarations (“don’t automate, obliterate”) was a bit dizzying.
Initially, we got the impression that gurus might have little in common other than a desire to get the HBR stamp of legitimacy conferred upon their latest notion. Yet as we read and reread these articles, as well as related analyses, we began to discern the quirky set of analytical and rhetorical tools that the gurus used to frame their influential ideas.
I list these below as a guide for anyone — from bloggers, to academics, to strategy consultants — looking to produce world-class thought leadership.
Tune Your Idea to the Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist, German for “spirit of the time,” is the complex interplay of economic, technological, political, and social forces that can determine which ideas will flop and which will fly in a particular moment. Again and again, we found that HBR writers learned to sync their ideas with the zeitgeist to deeply resonate with their savvy, connected readers.
The zeitgeist doesn’t have to be a vague and intangible notion, though it tends to remain so unless you intentionally look for it. Read widely and systematically scan sources, from new consulting reports to business headlines, to discern the zeitgeist. It can even be quantified. For example, a British study showed the precise ways in which management gurus in the 1980s U.K. effectively connected their ideas to the particular national moods aroused by Thatcher’s economic policies.
Similarly, scholars in the U.S. have found strong correlations between an idea’s popularity and economic indicators such as trade deficits, consumer confidence, and unemployment rates. As the U.S. trade deficit with Japan grew through the 1980s, for example, influential thinkers increasingly focused on how managerial innovations used in Japanese firms might be imported and adapted in the U.S.
Pick an Apt Objective. Underneath the varied thickets of research and rhetorical styles, some universal truths persist. In particular, our research revealed that HBR’s authors consistently took aim at one of three core business objectives: improved efficiency, greater effectiveness, or innovation of products and processes.
Since these gurus were paying attention to the zeitgeist, they knew which of the three objectives to select in order to maximize the demand for their ideas in the reader’s mind — and in the organizations where their ideas might be adopted.
During difficult economic times, organizations often seek ideas on how to cut costs or perform operations more efficiently. In better times, companies are attracted to ideas that help them do their work more effectively. In transition periods, during big technological shifts or the ends of recessions, companies often turn their aspirations to growth through innovation.
Link the New to the Old. Gurus often have a keen sense of management history. They adapt, build on, and reshuffle preexisting ideas into a package that appeals to managers today. But they also sprinkle in new case examples that align with the current zeitgeist.
Take Hamel and Prahalad’s 1990 HBR article, “The Core Competence of the Corporation,” which suggests that firms should identify some activity at which they already excel or could plausibly excel in the future, and make that the centerpiece of their strategy. Prior to this article’s publication, academics had talked for decades about the resource-based view of the firm. Edith Penrose, for example, published The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, generally considered the first book with a resource-based argument, in 1959.
So what did Hamel and Prahalad add? Both gurus brought deep business knowledge and a good sense of timing. They assembled numerous contemporary examples of core competence, including NEC’s semiconductors, Canon’s microelectronics, and Honda’s small-engine design. Note that all of these examples are Japanese companies, though non-Japanese firms are also mentioned. When the article was published in HBR in 1990, Japan’s economy was performing well, and Western managers were anxious to learn the secrets of their success. Hamel and Prahalad combined the old resource view with an emphasis on differentiation, made popular in the 1980s by Michael Porter. In general, these gurus made academic concepts readable, added salient examples — and wrapped them up in a punchy and alliterative title.
Understand the “P-Cycle.” Finally, HBR’s gurus tend to publish early in an idea’s lifecycle — during the pilot or project phase — though not at the very beginning. Let’s take a look at what this means.
We call the lifecycle of management ideas the “P-Cycle” because each phase of an idea’s life begins with that letter. All Ideas have progenitors. A progenitor can be a person who brings the idea into an organization, but it can also be the earlier ideas themselves, the prior thinking that supplied components and perspectives to the new idea. The first application of a new idea within an organization is typically a pilot, where the intent is to learn some of the idiosyncrasies of the idea and how it fits. At this point the idea may have little budget, management support, or visibility within the company.
In the project stage, the idea gains funding, labor, and attention; senior managers become aware of the idea. If a project becomes successful, it may migrate into a program, which generally involves many parts of the organization at once and can go on for years. It is at the program stage that the idea has maximum attention and is discussed in external communications, such as the annual report or analyst briefings.
When programs are successful and continue over a long-enough period, they penetrate the mind of the organization and become a perspective. At this point, the ideas become integral to everyday work life, though people are still conscious of the idea when they practice it. Finally, pervasiveness is the ideal end state for a business-improvement approach. It’s a perspective that has gone universal and is embedded in the way a company operates.
Thought leaders “lead” by staying ahead of the curve — by recognizing and writing about managerial ideas before they become too mature. By the time an idea has hit the perspective stage in organizations, it’s probably too late to become a thought leader for that idea.
Many of the articles in our study might be considered timeless and are still widely read today. But their authors generally had an impeccable sense of timing, and a set of skills to link their idea to power of the now.
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