Welcome—or welcome back—to The Thoughtful Executive.
Most executive thought leadership programs work hard and aim at nothing in particular. When someone eventually asks, “What’s the point of all this?” the answers are usually vague.
Strategy decks tend to talk about “visibility,” “brand,” or “being part of the conversation.” Those sound reasonable. They’re also impossible to defend in a meeting with a CFO who wants to know what all this time and budget are doing for the business.
At a minimum, your program needs to do one thing: give you a defensible answer when someone serious asks, “What is this actually for?” A better way to get there is simple: for each important audience, what job is this work supposed to do?