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List-Making as a

Tool of Thought Leadership

an e - bo ok by

MA R K LEV
MARK
LEY VY
an e-book by

Y IN N O VATIO N L L C
LE VYLwEV
IN
N OVATION LLC
w w. l e v y i n n o v a t i o n . c o m

A LEVY INNOVATION EBOOK

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 worlds 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. Hes 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 mark@levyinnovation.com.

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Table of Contents
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As a Thought Leader, Youre Hired for Your Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

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

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

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

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

If you enjoy this eBook, please share it with others. Thank you.
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List-Making as a

Tool of Thought Leadership

As a thought leader, youre hired for your ideas. In a sense,
your ideas are your inventory. Theyre your currency.
Bluntly stated: Your ideas equal money.
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.

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Why not?
One reason is that, as the world changes, the effectiveness
of your ideas even your best ideascan erode.
What once worked stops working. A second reason is that the marketplace
habituates to your ideas. Prospects think they know what youre going to
suggest, so they turn to other people who tout mystery strategies holding
greater promise.
As a thought leader, its 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 Ive used with clients
is one youve 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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A list constructively narrows your focus. Its 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.
Dont 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 thats 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

Whats obvious here? and Whats surprising?

Based on your questions and close study, what will happen?
Human beings are meaning-making machines. In a matter of moments,
youll 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:

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LIST-MAKING FOR IDEATION IN DETAIL

Step #1: Brainstorm a Master List

When you need fresh ideas on a topic, start by making an initial list.
What type? A list of lists. Ill explain.
Youre going to brainstorm the title of every list you could possibly make about
your topic. Lets call the paper you record these titles on your master list.
Some of the titles on your master list might sound genericlike you could
use them to study virtually any topic in the world:
What do I know about (this topic)?
What dont I know about it?
What are all the pieces I could divide it into?
How can I reframe it?
What are my assumptions about it?
What are some facts?
What stories about it come to mind?
What images?
What metaphors and analogies?
What successes have I had in my work on it?
What mistakes have I made?
What excites me about it?
What scares me?

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What small experiments might I try?

Who are the experts on this topic?
Who can I interview about it?
Who shouldnt I interview?
What other topics does this one remind me of?

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:
How would an organization know if its culture is changing?
Why do some culture changes succeed?
What cultures have sustained themselves longest?
What must an organization give up to change its culture?
What does it get in return?
How do you measure the value of a culture change?
What things might be more important to an organization
than culture change?
What are all the things you could work on to change a culture?
What organizations have I worked with that have had a great culture?
What things have I done that contributed to a culture change?
Can you lock in a great culture, or must it always change?
What non-human cultures could I study that might give me
insight into human culture?

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In making your master list, dont over-think it.

Take a few minutes and jot down as many titles as you can, as fast as you
can. This doesnt require copious research and deliberation. Compiling the
master list is based on feeling more than scholarship.
When youve listed thirty titles or so, stop.

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Step #2: Explore Your Topic Through Multiple Lists

Look over your master list, and pick a handful of lists youd like to write.
Maybe five, ten, or fifteen different ones.
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 its for reasons you cant explain, choose it as one of the lists youll 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:

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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.
- Theyre 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 organizations overall marketplace strategy.
- The change fits the organizations 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 doesnt have to subvert the fledgling culture.

Naturally, this list is only a sample. Yours neednt 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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Step #3: Make Meaning From Your Fresh

Vantage Point
Once youve finished filling in the lists, spread them on a table,
shuffle them around, and look from list to list and item to item.
Ask yourself questions about what you see. Questions like:
Whats obvious?
What havent I noticed before?
Whats right?
Whats wrong?
Whats missing?
Whats surprising?
Whats useful?
In the spirit of play, what items can I force together that dont belong together?
What patterns do I see?
Whats this all adding up to?
Start playing with answers even if theyre only provisional answers and
interim thoughts.
By giving your lists time, attention, and curiosity, youll see your topic from
a perspective thats wide and uncommon.

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Itll be like the first time you saw your hometown from the air.

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

Youll make fresh meaning from what youre observing. Youll notice connections between lists, spot
associations among items, discover patterns, build hypothesis, recall stories, and formulate ideas.
Understand, you neednt 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, whats in front of you will be different. Youll 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. Dont limit yourself to notions elegant or weighty. Dont try for grand thoughts. Small is fine.

Get everything down.

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Step #4: Build an Inventory of New Thoughts

Youll now have a pad jammed with your ideas, observations, stories,
opinions, and hypothesizes.
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. Youll 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. Youll 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 wont 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? Its 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 isnt critical. What is important is this:

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If you read one of your thought chunks even ten years from now
youd understand what it meant instantly.
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, Ill draw examples from my
own work.
Im a positioning consultant. Suppose, then, that I wanted to write an eBook
on elevator speeches. To stir my thinking, Id make a few lists. While mining
those lists for associations and connections, ideas would pop into my head,
and Id scribble each onto a pad in as few words as I could, so I could keep
the flow going.
Lets 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 lets say I didnt review my notes for a month. By that
point, the phrases meaning may have evaporated. Id have lost a thought with
potential value.

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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. Its
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 youd recently seen, you wouldnt
hesitate until you found the perfect thing to say, and you wouldnt
recount every scene.
Instead, youd instinctively head for something distinctive:
Its about a robot that travels back in time to protect its inventor,
or Its based on a play that won the Pulitzer, or Its 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.

Ive 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.
Itll 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 werent meant to be seen by
others. For instance, heres 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. Thats wild. In his overall process, writing the first draft is a
micro-step.

When I first wrote that chunk, I didnt expect to share it with anyone, so
I didnt 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 dont 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: Youre building an inventory of fresh
ideas, observations, and stories.

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In a few days, you might try another list-making sessionusing 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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What to Do Next
I suggest trying the process immediately. That way, youll get a feel for
what its like and what it can do for you.
Begin by picking a topic about which youd like some fresh ideas, or by
choosing a problem youd like to solve. Then, go through each of the four
steps outlined in this eBook (Step #1. Brainstorm a master list. Step #2.
Explore your topic through multiple lists. 3. Make meaning from your fresh
vantage point. 4. Build an inventory of new thoughts.).
Also, if you visit my website, www.levyinnovation.com, youll find a
list-making workbook that lays out each step, and includes room for
your handwritten answers.

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Additional Notes
How long should the list-making process take? That depends on your goals,
preferences, and schedule.
If you just wanted to give a subject some top-of-the-mind thinking, you
could do it in under an hour. That is, youd brainstorm five lists in a couple of
minutes, then youd 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 doesnt 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 followinglengthyroute.
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.

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On one hand, three hours is a long time to spend ideating. On the other hand,
its 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 youll 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, Ive lead clients

through a cooperative problem-solving approach
using list-making. Heres what it looks like:
One member of the group briefly discusses a problem on which theyd like
help. The group then jointly follows the list-making processall in support
of solving that one group members 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 theyll
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, theyll need time to explain what they wrote.
The relevance of each item wont be self-evident.
2. I wouldnt 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 Ive 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, Ive got ideas scattered throughout
my computer.
Ill search when the time comes. Therein lies madness. Youll feel pressured,
and 90% of the time your search will come up empty. By saving and
organizing chunks as you go, youre tending your lawn regularly so its always
thick and green.

An added benefit of this chunk approach: Youll remember

your ideas and stories better.
The material will be more actively stored in your brain, because youll 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 wont neatly fit a single category.

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

As Im combing through a document and come across

a chunk, I ask myself two questions:
1. How does this particular chunk relate to the subject Im writing about?
2. What subject can I write about based on this chunk?
Make sense? The chunk either supports something Im in the process of
writing, or I think about what new piece I could write starting from that chunk.

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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 havent been
able to find that article again. My thanks, though, to its author, whose identity
is unknown to me. Ill 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 Dont Have to Do
It Alone, is an influential leader in large-scale corporate change. If youre
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.

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARK LEVY

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

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