Digital Disruption: An Interview with Lisa Bodell of Futurethink

by Tom Martin for The Lane ReportThe following is an edited transcript of Tom Martin’s interview with Lisa Bodell, founder and CEO of futurethink. The interview was conducted at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. AUDIO | To listen to the entire conversation with Lisa, click here.Tom Martin: As founder and CEO of futurethink, Lisa Bodell has transformed teams within organizations like Google, Novartis, Accenture, HBO, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Merck, Fidelity, even the U.S. Navy. Best-selling author of “Kill the Company,” her latest is “Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters,” which is what we will do right now. Thanks for joining us, Lisa.Lisa Bodell: Oh, thanks for having me.Tom: And do we humans have this tendency to complicate everything?Lisa: We definitely have a tendency to complicate things. And one of the things that was interesting to me about doing the research in this book was that so much of the complexity that exists is self-imposed and unproductive, but most of it has actually been put on us unintentionally.So, we create the beast that we become a slave to all the time. And a lot of that is driven by risk and fear and power and control, and that’s what drives us to want to have, you know, just one more metric just to be safe; one more KPI; one more report, just to triple-check things; one more meeting to make another person help us with that decision, versus a lot more reliance on our gut, and we need to get back to that balance.Tom: You offer guidance on how to eliminate the mundane or the unnecessary from the daily routine and free up more time for work that matters. What are some key ways to clear away all that clutter?Lisa: Oh, my gosh, I wish we had more time. The good news is that there are so many things that you can do that are very easy, and I’ll tell you a few of my favorites.So, one of the things that you can do for yourself or with your team is you can kill stupid rules. A lot of things that we put in place had a purpose at one point, but they may have outlived their time. Things changed. We don’t spend enough time going back and reviewing our work practices and the rules we put in place to see if they’re relevant anymore.Read More →