Leading Thoughts on Thought Leadership (with Peter Linder)

Leonard Lee, Executive Analyst at neXt Curve, is joined by Peter Linder, Head of Thought Leadership for Ericsson in the Americas, in this enlightening episode of the Rethink Podcast. 

Together, they delve deep into what thought leadership truly entails, especially in the complex world of telco and mobile wireless industries. 

Peter shares his invaluable insights and experiences, emphasizing the importance of framing problems differently, providing strong evidences, and facilitating actionable steps for audiences within and outside the organization and industry. 

This discussion offers a comprehensive look at how thought leadership can drive change and advance the industry, making it a must-listen for anyone keen on understanding the nuances of this influential role. 

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
01:54 Meet Peter Linder: Thought Leadership Expert
02:47 Defining Thought Leadership
04:44 Challenges and Strategies in Thought Leadership
06:45 The Role of Thought Leadership in the Telecom Industry
07:44 Practical Examples and Analogies
16:43 The Mental Resilience of a Thought Leader
25:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Like, share, and comment to join the conversation!

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Music 0:00

Next curve. Hey everyone, this is Leonard Lee, executive Analyst at Next Curve, and, uh, welcome to the Rethink Podcast. Uh, I have a really special guest. His name is Peter Linder, and he is like, are you global yet, or are you just still just a fraction of the world thought leader

Peter Linder 0:20

fraction of the world? North, north American, Latin America.

Leonard Lee 0:23

Of Erickson and, he's a very, very special guest. And we're gonna be talking about thought leadership. The thing that everyone is today, a thought leader, but we're gonna break it down and we're gonna help you understand that thought leadership is actually kind of hard and it requires something, which Peter has a lot of. Which is experience and perspective in helping to shape thinking and advancing mindsets to get to the next thing. So this is gonna be a really, really interesting topic and, like, share, comment on this podcast. I think this is gonna be a very special one. It's one, about a topic that Peter and I talk a lot about actually, and especially as it pertains to the telco industry and, mobile wireless. because you know, there's a lot of people who opine about it. They talk about what we need to do to, get the industry out of its rut or whatever it is, however they characterize things. But, uh, remember. Anything that this guy says. those are his own thoughts, his opinions, not that of, Ericson, right? Because this is a buddy buddy conversation, right, Peter? Right.

Peter Linder 1:34

No, we're gonna try to get deep into it and, see what's really under the hood, what it looks like, so, absolutely.

Leonard Lee 1:39

this is entirely, a discussion that we're having to help our audience understand thought leadership and then maybe advance your thinking about what that really is. all his thoughts are his own and don't reflect that of Next Curve and Leonard Lee. why don't we get started Now, I kind of introduced you, Peter, so why don't you formally introduce yourself and your background?

Peter Linder 2:02

Thank you very much. So, what I do is I'm head of, thought leadership for Ericsson in Americas. and that is the world that is both North Ander, south America, Latin America today. And, I've, been into this position, roughly four years since I started for North America, and more recently expanding to Latin America as that is the scope of our organization. And, I've been with Ericsson for quite some time. I joined in, 1991, so I've been seeing, a thing or two on the telecoms world. started very much in broadband for the first 15 years, and then mobile broadband the last 15 plus years. I'm a networking guy. also try to be more on the side of connecting dots than, collecting dots and connecting dots, is the best way to describe it.

Leonard Lee 2:47

Given that thought leadership is in your title, you have to know something about it. But we had a conversation about this actually. I forgot when. But we had a conversation about it and all I remember it was a good one. but recently you sent me, this outline, that I thought was really, really well done. It really nicely frames what thought leadership. Is and should be and how it should be understood.

Peter Linder 3:15

Now, I think it's very easy to, get it wrong because you look at the two words you think about thought and leadership and it can easily gravitate towards, okay, it's about me, my thoughts and my leadership I think the really big value of thought leadership is, when you take it to the next level and say, Hey, this is not about, my thoughts or my leadership, it's about what I try to do to make a difference for my customers. So when you're putting the customer in focus and actions saying, what is the difference you can make for the customer and trying to be. The one making the biggest difference for your customer. And I think a lot of it boils down to three things. It boils down to the points of view you're presenting. Everybody gets that right, but you also need to back it up by very strong evidences and facts. And ideally you should help your, customer or the person you're interacting with and actually helping. You should help them see the best actions that you can suggest for them so they can take actions. So it's not only something that you soak in, but you say, oh, holy cow. If I know this right now, then I need to take actions. And what are those actions I can take? it's also a profession that's very different if you're working with thought leadership in a large consultancy organization

Leonard Lee 4:27

mm-hmm.

Peter Linder 4:28

Where you have a big research team and a big editorial team working, backing you up, or whether you work in a large organization that I do where you're more kind of a spider in the west. it's not that I'm sitting doing all the thinking, myself, Pulling in from various different, professions from across the company. thought leadership is very different if you're in a consultancy or organization or if you're working in a large corporation.

Leonard Lee 4:51

In terms of purpose, the way I look at thought leadership is it's a trigger of two. Reshape, I think, or even adjust or even create new point, you know, discussions, right? So if there's a prevailing point of view and a different, prevailing discourse that's happening or perception of something, that you're trying to influence folks to think about it in a a different way and ideally it's a way. That is based on gap filling. one of the things that you mentioned, in the past is the, notion of connecting dots. And oftentimes, especially given how some of topics that we're dealing with today are so complex, multi. dimensional multi-domain, it's very difficult to connect the dots, right? And there's certain things that are actually evident, that, thought leadership can help, clarify and amplify. that realization is actually that thing that is not only fundamental in moving things forward, but it is the thing that audiences and stakeholders need to. Be cognizant of, and hopefully at some point once you get, them to be aware, get them to espouse and get them to, act on that new understanding. Right. And I think that's been the challenge. I've, seen the telco industry. We have a lot of proponents and antagonists even within the industry that, posit one way or the other or how the industry should go, should you be a tech go or you should, just, manage a dumb pipe forever, or what is a dumb pipe and blah, blah, blah. But then you get caught into these circular arguments that don't. The end of the day, take the industry out of whatever sort of, pit of discourse, that's, stunting thinking, progressive thinking. You know what I'm saying?

Peter Linder 6:45

You're under something very important here because with thought leadership, you're trying to help people get a new frame.

Leonard Lee 6:50

Yeah.

Peter Linder 6:50

frame framing a problem in a different way. Giving you one example, four years ago we talked about the digital divide was a big, really big thing.

Leonard Lee 6:58

Yeah.

Peter Linder 6:58

And a lot of people thought that you can listen to the name. That's a dig ital divide. You have to dig yourself out of the problem. You have to dig fiber everywhere, and then you get out the digital divide. An important part of reframing of that question was like saying, Hey. If you look at what it is right now, how long will it take to dig fiber to everybody in the United States? four years ago, we were on path to have that job completed 2066 How fast you can, you can take and get fiber everywhere. And the other key component was like, Hey, a lot of people, like my mom for example, is way easier to get them to buy into that D net, that they need a smartphone so that their interface is five inches rather than 55 inches. Talking about the digital divide as being both fixed and mobile and talking, hey, it doesn't, you don't have to dig yourself out of it. You can connect a lot to people wirelessly, those kind of things is a good example of a reframing of something that everybody thought was a, a very clear problem. And also the fact that when you have to talk to different audiences, it's very different to talk to a service provider or an enterprise. Or an ecosystem partner or regulator and policymaker. sometimes you have to figure out for a particular thought leadership idea. how do I find the common map in the middle that everybody can see, and then the unique aspects that are unique for different audiences and that. Just keeping it simple so everybody can agree on the basics and then branching out. That's a lot where I think the framing and the point of view creation lies.

Leonard Lee 8:25

and it is a creative exercises you and I know, and have experienced, because it's not about regurgitating existing thought. It's about. advancing, a progression in thought. and you know, I do actually have a lot of folks who. ask me about thought leadership and how is it different from influence, right? Because now we have all these influencers and we have these folks who are self-proclaimed thought leaders, or even, I mean, you know, anyone who has a ton of people falling around, like they're considered influencers. But what is it that makes a thought leader a thought leader? And it's really that novel thinking that progresses. Discourse and mindset to the next level. it's movement. It's not emphasizing or educating people on existing thought. that has value. But that's why the thought leadership role you have done is different from being an educator. Education is just part of the exercise. The next thing is how do you get. People to understand the next thought, that's critical in advancing something, not necessarily making people aware and educating on existing frameworks and paradigms of thinking.

Peter Linder 9:44

I think you can describe it a little bit as seeing the difference here by showing how I spend my time? how do I think that's different from an influencing role. I spend my time roughly one third of research and understanding and trying to see what is really going on. One third is perhaps spent on creating content, not so much slides, but more, talk tracks. I live and die talk tracks.

Leonard Lee 10:08

Yeah.

Peter Linder 10:09

I try to frame everything I talk about in three minute blocks, like 3.3 minute blocks, I can remember it. You can catch it. You and the audience can catch it. And then the last third is like how to convey it. Yeah. Like speaking on a stage or being on a podcast like this. And I think what differentiate the thought leader is that you have to spend the hard work in the first two buckets. Because for me it's very much. I need to do the research and understanding. That's no doubt. But also for me, I write every single piece that I talk about down myself. Why? Because that is typically where the, where the things goes into my brain. And for most of thought leadership pieces like that, I write like blog posts, and so I write them on a phone. So I write them, type them letter by letter, because that prevent me from, from brain typing.

Leonard Lee 11:02

Yeah. So

Peter Linder 11:02

it goes, it, it doesn't go very quick for me. I'm seeing this on two fingers on the keyboard and one finger on the phone. But you just dump me. Yeah, I tried to get there. I haven't got there yet.

Leonard Lee 11:14

You have it on the table and you're pecking it with two fingers

Peter Linder 11:17

no, no. But the, the, here that then I write, I be careful, but it takes forever to write a lot of stuff. Yeah. So I pay more attention to every single let I take in because I'm a little bit sloppy too. So, uh, that, that, I, I think these things, it's where it differentiate you for a, uh. Uh, and the best way for, I think for a thought leader to get something really good done is you commit to an important speaking stage and you do it well in advance, and then you commit to, okay, I'm gonna present some novel thinking at this particular advance. Yeah. And then you fit it in the frame, that you're being given. So for example, this spring, I was tasked to speak at CTA in Washington at their annual 5G event. 10 minutes. Like heavy lit scene, you're stepping up there and you know, you're doing 10 minutes, you don't do that

Leonard Lee 12:05

one.

Peter Linder 12:05

yeah. And so just this, getting your story into a nine minute, 46 second frame and knowing that you consistently can deliver that, that's where I think that is when thought, when you see thought leadership coming out, and you, a lot of people think that, oh, 10 minutes, it's easy. 10 minutes is perhaps the hardest formats that are out there. Yeah. And if you do the two first steps really good, then you deliberate on 10 minutes and, uh, and, and,

Leonard Lee 12:31

yeah.

Peter Linder 12:31

So that's a good way how to advance your thinking, because if you push yourself to those kind of things and always going to the next level, it's mm-hmm. Just the, I think that the tricky part.

Leonard Lee 12:43

Yeah. And it's also a big exercise internally within organizations as well. Right. So if we were to take a look at the role of. Thought leadership and how it institutes, sort of adaptive thinking within organizations. that's another function I think of thought leadership. And here's the thing, I make a distinction between thought leadership and visioning stuff, right? You can read a article in Popular Mechanics about like UFO. frigging warp drives or something like that, being the future of aircraft propulsion systems, right? But that's not thought leadership. a lot of people can look at, research level technology and imagine all kinds of stuff. Thought leadership is a little bit more, near term, it has immediate value. The potential of immediate value in its application if you are able to affect that mindset shift, right? it's not fantasy stuff, right? That's not thought leadership. it has purpose. It doesn't function to help people be aware of science fiction or just science. It's what are we doing to shape. The perception of, let's say, a particular problem or the state of an industry, state of a product, state of a market, so that we can advance the mutual benefit in moving to the next level, right? Whether it's, let's say 4G to 5G, you know, there's so much debate about, oh, what's the value of 5G advance, or what's the value of six g? Yet, there's so little, quite honestly thought leadership, a lot of it is just a bunch of people arguing with each other. You know what I'm saying? No, but absolutely. It's not necessarily thought leadership that that's really people expressing legacy thinking and projecting it onto a problem and then having an argument.

Peter Linder 14:39

Exactly. When you're pushing for authorities leadership, you're trying to change people's mind and it's never a good thing when you present thought leadership and someone said, yep, agreed with you, with everything you said, because then they knew it before and they most likely taken all the decisions they could based on that information in the past as well. So then you didn't move them really, you didn't really move their thinking an inch. But if you're saying, Hey, I'm gonna push the envelope a little bit here, I'm gonna push the envelope where, the fence is for where my company's comfortable with us talking about, and so you have the first internal like test if, are you pushing it hard enough is that it has to create resistance in your organization? Yeah. That is where the, that's where there's starting to come the test of your mental resilience in this because. You're pushing, you're getting feedback or say, am I pushing too far or should I back off a little bit? But not too much because then you're getting into that when you're watering down. So there's nothing left of the thing that change people thinking. And the same thing when you're, with the prestigious clients and stuff like that, when you're challenging their thinking as well. So it's like great thought leadership, always create tension. Yeah. And as a thought leader. This could, this is really, really tough in the later part of the process.

Leonard Lee 15:59

Because

Peter Linder 15:59

you're pushing things and saying, Hey, did I push too far? Now they did. I'm getting pushed back from there and you have to trust yourself.

Leonard Lee 16:08

Yeah.

Peter Linder 16:08

and you also have to be humble. Listen, but okay. I still, I listen, but I still believe in it. I can defend it. I still have the, you've done the research, you have the facts that's backing it up. So you still feel confident, but you should be close to the edge.

Leonard Lee 16:24

Yeah.

Peter Linder 16:25

and this is where it start to get tense. In the back end of an important thought leadership project because not only are you scrambling to get everything together. But you also said, Hey, are we pushing it hard enough? Are we pushing it not too far and not backing off when it's, risk of watering it down? So that's, yeah. it's very much a mental ex. So if I've talked about the evidence. the point of view and the actions, but the mental piece, like when you get to the, especially in the last quarter or last, like you see it all, it's building up the tension. And this is not only putting yourself on stage, it's like the, Hey, does it resonate? Does it, and then we've thought, now it's start moving people's mind. Now you start seeing the ideas getting traction. And that's the beauty, but also. The, to me it's like this, the scary part and it wears me out every time. Wears lot of people. No, no. It, it absolutely does. And, uh, you, you're thinking about Well, yeah,

Leonard Lee 17:21

yeah. you nailed it on the head. it's the friction. that's how you measure whether or not the thought you're introducing, actually. Fosters constructive debate. there is that anxiety, and I get that all the time as well because a lot of my research is forward looking and so it's always a little bit creepy and sometimes there is a sense of trepidation that you have in putting your thought out there. It's not a comfortable thing. And I do, talk to many people who ask me, well, how do you do it? what are some ways that I can, be more like, do stuff like what you do. I say, well, number one, it's really scary. And you have to get used to it, and you have to build that muscle. Right. And then build scar tissue, have that resilience that you mentioned, But then also the fortitude to get into some of the stuff. It's like performing on stage. Do you know what I'm saying? Like a musician getting up. First time you ever, if you got anybody who's a musician getting up on stage the first time is. Immensely scary. Or getting on the microphone first on karaoke, right? It's almost like the same thing, but thought leadership, it's different and there's that friction and the invitation. Literally an invitation for debate. That's another element. The direction. Are you going in a better direction? Are you suggesting. To your audience that what I'm providing is thought augmenting perspective. That's going to help. Right? And, and the, while it might sound really, like a selfish effort, the purpose is generous. Do you know what I'm saying? I think that's the nature of, thought leadership at least to me. And as I observe the work that you do and, the challenges that you face, not only internally, but in terms of being able to influence and shift. Thinking in the industry, it's something that I notice in the work that you do.

Peter Linder 19:20

Well, I always test and qualify the work I do as I did my contributions allow people to take action.

Leonard Lee 19:26

Yeah,

Peter Linder 19:27

change. And often when we present things, we talk about sort of leadership, oh you know, you were here, you didn't do anything. And that is hard in a lot of situations.

Leonard Lee 19:35

Yeah.

Peter Linder 19:35

It's like you don't become from, Hey, I have some problems here to be kick as fantastic overnight. So often I think when like suggesting, thinking about what are the actions people could take here, status quo doing nothing, articulate that clearly. So that is one option. Least effort. What should anyone be able to do when based on listening, adhering to the piece I presented second best, which is like, okay, fantastic, without all the bells and whistles, and then the best option is perhaps a little bit further out. Not something that you rarely hit in one go, because then you can achieve something really, really interesting. It becomes always, in almost all situations, it becomes a choice between the least effort and second best. Helping people to take that. And then you are, or you're a lot closer to something like, Hey, my health result wasn't so good. Okay, what about these 10,000 steps a day? Well, that I should be able to do? What about if I do 14,000 steps a day? Oh, that perhaps, ah, I start with 10 and then I can move to 14. Then I could do a trilon or up or marathon after that. But finding these kind of ways, so you kind of. Trying to bring it home so it doesn't, you're not trying to be just the wisest person in the room, or with the best ideas and the best facts, but didn't help the person that, that you had in front of you.

Leonard Lee 20:55

one of the things that you want to, do as a thought leader is present, synthesized thinking. It's typically cross-domain. It's something that. might be a perspective that is not conventional, right? But going back to this notion of friction, the friction is that indicator of potential value. The direction is a probability of actually delivering value Through that thought leadership, it is sort of how I view it.

Peter Linder 21:26

No, but I can give you one anecdote, when you manage to synthesize something that's really down to very simple. when 5G was introduced, we are trying to make everybody understand this difference between low band, mid band, and high band spectrum, which was really difficult for people to get their arms wrong. No one's really thought about that. we took the, golf clubs as an example. just the drivers, that's low band to reach very, very far. it goes forever. And then mid band, we said that is like an iron. low band is like a short wedge. we focused on, not so much about the speed that's delivering, but the distance and the reach and saying, it's really hard to get network coverage with just a lot of wedges. Then it takes it forever to get the hole on the par five. And then I presented this and there was, a number of women that didn't play golf in the audience. And we used the same slides for four years. And they say, well, we don't play golf. How should we be thinking? Well, you know, low band, it's like your flats, flat shoes. You can walk in them forever, but mid band, that's your kitten heels that you can, well you can walk reasonably comfortable but not super long. And high band, that's your high heels, that they're the fancy stuff but doesn't goes along. And all of a sudden you had people into the dialogue. I still have people remember that, that have heard those presentations that come say, well, I didn't understand anything from that conference, but your golf clubs, they, that has stayed stuck in my mind. So I think this is a part of thought leadership as well. Sometimes it's not like the 45 minutes that you talk for the whole interaction, but if you can get one of those nuggets in the head of the person in front of you, a little bit of that tool where you synthesize it into something that is memorable and a kind of a hook that, Hey, I need to speak to that guy again about, about the spectrum, man, the shoes that exactly. The person, so those kind of things. Never underestimate the power of those kind of tricks in the thought leadership back, because they're part of, they're part of thought leadership

Leonard Lee 23:30

yeah,

Peter Linder 23:31

Because people don't trust that many people for thought leadership so that the people that you trust is perhaps the ones that made those memorable impressions and they got the hook in another hook and another hook in a after while. It looks like the whole, uh, fishing. Yeah,

Leonard Lee 23:46

that's a, that's a great point. And I guess that's one of the creative aspects of being a thought leader is taking that thought and distilling it into a fun little. you know, palatable or even digestible concepts, right? Or analogies. So I know that you're really good at that. I'm surprised you didn't create a wine related analogy for the different types of 5G drama. Uh, so that's too funny. But hey, I know we can go on forever. maybe we will. I have another follow up. we'll have a follow on, Discussion, but, to our audience, I remember, you know, the stuff that, Peter mentioned, develop a clear point of view, number one. Number two, research, backing your point of view. And then, number three, facilitate actions. And, finally the. Mental resiliency game, right? Make sure that you have the intestinal fortitude to go out there and have the debates. 'cause there will be debates. I mean, if there's no debate, it's not thought leadership. Right. you're not challenging people's prevailing thinking, and that's what a thought leader does. So,

Peter Linder 24:57

yeah. And the debates this is debates that you give your, the next step and the next step and the next step. So by taking those debates, you develop and you see, hold, I presented this thing, but you know, this is moving the conversation over there and over there so that when you take the debate, you got your nest output's pretty much lined up.

Leonard Lee 25:17

Yeah. Well, you also learn a lot through those debates as well. That's the fun thing about thought leadership. Right. Peter, hey. Thank you. This was really fun. always a pleasure chatting with you. Always super fun and humorous.

Peter Linder 25:30

No, and I really appreciate this, for having this conversation because I think sometimes it's not obvious to people what we do behind the scenes. What you do. No, but no, it's, it's not very rare that I talk about that. But this is a, yeah. Yeah. I hope, I hope you and the audience also have learned and gotten something out of it and seeing that, what does it take to, how do you drive thought leadership in a large organization and what are the kind of things to focus on Took me a while to figure out what those three things that we talked about here, plus a mental resilience.

Leonard Lee 26:00

Yeah. It

Peter Linder 26:01

took me to perhaps two years in my role until I felt comfortable. This is the core of it.

Leonard Lee 26:05

Yeah. Well, it helps that you know what you're talking about. You know, I think that's foundational, right? Yep. The, the stakeholders, they need to, number one, respect you at a foundational level and, you know, and you mentioned, how long have you been with, With Ericsson and how many generations of the technologies and the deployments that you've seen. I think that's important as well. But hey, thank you so much my friend. This is, a weekend, so we, we need to go off and do our weekend stuff, right? And yeah, and everyone, if you don't know who Peter is, then wow, he's everywhere. and, you know, he's at Erickson, so look him up on LinkedIn and you'll find him. And he has some really cool photos. He's very photogenic. And he's also really good with video. He's quite funny actually. So yeah, reach out to him. He doesn't bite. He is a fabulous personality and, thanks for joining and listening in on this podcast, and we hope you took a lot away from it. And you have a better understanding what thought leadership is, and so remember. Please subscribe to our podcast. It's gonna be featured on our next curve, YouTube channel, which you're probably watching it on right now, but it's also in the audio version on. Buzzsprout. So we're available across all your, podcast platforms. So pick your favorite one and take us on your jog and your daily commute, and also subscribe to the next curve research portal@www.next-curve.com and on our sub stack. Okay. If you haven't subscribed to our substack, do that 'cause that is where I am publishing all the good Next curve stuff. remember, subscribe for the tech and industry insights that matter and reach out to, Peter, the true thought leader of our time. Right Peter, that's something to live

Peter Linder 28:04

up to. Thank you very much, Leonardo. That's a pleasure. Yeah, thank

Leonard Lee 28:07

you. Take care.