How to transform boring white papers into provocative thought leadership (with 6 AI prompts) (Intellicomms™)

Your exec wants to be a thought leader? These prompts will save your sanity.

The AI prompt I used to create the two images featured in this article is in the postscript

Your executive just forwarded a link to a 92-page McKinsey report with the cryptic “thoughts?” message. (Comms-rades love those emails… 🙄)

But you know what she's getting at. A month ago your exec decided she wanted to be seen as a “thought leader” among her peers. (Your first thought: she's setting the stage to leave. Your second thought: OK, but I've never heard her express much originality…how do I start??).

Like everyone else you could summarize the report’s key findings and slap an original paragraph on top with a bland declaration about how urgent it is for XYZ leaders to pay attention to world-changing trends like these.

🥅 But if your goal is to position your exec as a genuine thought leader—not just another voice in the LinkedIn echo chamber—you need a different approach.

Here’s the thing about using industry reports and white papers as springboards for thought leadership: everyone reads (er, scans) the same reports (Edelman Trust Barometer, anyone?), but few take the time to develop an original perspective.

• It’s too easy to simply repackage the main points, maybe add a quote from an exec, and call it a day.

That’s not thought leadership. That’s the equivalent of retweeting re-posting without reading the article.

💭 Idea: what if you could actually add to the conversation?

• What if your exec could turn heads with a tightly crafted creative take on a popular, otherwise non-earth-shattering annual report?

What if your exec’s LinkedIn post got forwarded more than the report she cites?

⚒️ You can use AI to help mine these annual reports for unexpected angles, identify compelling counterarguments, and craft perspectives that actually advance the conversation.

• (And in the process you get to work on something more exciting than a formulaic quote for a press release or obligatory employee note on XYZ program.)

Using a Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) as a model executive and McKinsey’s State of Organizations 2023 report as an example research document, I’ll show you:

• ✅ how to use AI to transform door-stopper industry research into distinctive thought leadership

• ✅ how to remix the resulting article into content for six mixternal channels

• ✅ a repeatable process that works with any industry report or white paper that lands in your inbox

• ✅ 6 AI prompts and actual chatbot outputs from this exercise, so you can see the work in action

• ✅ 4 guardrails to put in place to keep you from going astray

Reality check: The goal isn’t to have AI write your thought leadership. (Though, yep, you can do that, too.) Rather, the idea is to use AI to help identify unique angles and pressure-test arguments, so you can write something original for your exec.

• The final product still needs your expertise, your exec’s genuine perspective, and most importantly, your exec’s and company’s actual experience with the topics at hand.

👀 Spotted elsewhere: This article, “STAY HUMAN - How to Avoid Generic Thought Leadership Disease,” advises B2B marketers to create unique, human-centered content by avoiding clichés and focusing on authentic stories that reflect their company’s distinct perspective.

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Set the Stage for Success

For this exercise I’m using ChatGPT because a) anyone can access the tool for free and play along and b) because it’s good enough to get the job done.

• I would use the paid version of Claude if I were doing this IRL because the 3.5 Sonnet version is more interesting, clever, and writes better than ChatGPT.

But before we dive into the report, we need to get AI thinking like your exec.

This step is crucial because it helps frame all subsequent prompts through the lens of someone with real industry experience and authority.

• 🛣️ This is #1 of six AI prompts in this essay.

Here's a basic prompt:

You are the Chief Human Resources Officer of a [industry] company with [X] years of experience. You are creating thought leadership content to raise your profile among senior HR leaders and contribute meaningfully to conversations about organizational transformation. Your approach blends academic research with practical experience leading large-scale change.

You can make the prompt more concrete. Since we're working with McKinsey's State of Organizations report, here's how I'd customize it (for my imaginary CHRO):