Lisa Bodell
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
We use real business challenges and we teach them by doing it over and over again, how to actually be more curious. And so that's how we teach it, right? We give a technique and we apply it to multiple scenarios at work. We then let them go and do it for a while and we come back and coach them again three months later.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
Because that's the thing about human skills is you have to try it, you have to recalibrate and then you have to try it again. And I think that approach really works for people. When you teach technical skills, you try it. Yeah, you adjust, but there's one way to do it. With human-centered skills, it depends on the personality and everyone has to find their own way with that skill.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
If you're asking about what I would do differently for schools, I think actually applying these in schools is very important because if we learn them better at a young age, we'd be better prepared when we get out into the work world. I think there's a key thing we need to change within schools.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
And schools right now, and I can only speak from my perspective on the West and the United States particularly, is that we are training people to be future employees. And what we should be doing is training them to be future humans. We're not raising employees. We're raising humans. And I'm always fascinated when you go into a school and they teach subject matter expertise.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
Yes, it's very good to have technical skills, but the future isn't just about technical skills. The future is also about human skills. That's what makes people different. And by teaching more of those human-centered skills in schools, I think that would make people be more prepared for work and for life. I also think within schools, it would be really good to teach futuring.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
It's always stunning to me that we spend so much time learning about history, and we should. We never teach people about actually embracing change and actually thinking about the future. Why?
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I think that's a big opportunity for us to be able to teach people about change, how to think creatively about the future, how to think more creatively about their lives so they can be better humans, not just better employees.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
How would you guide her? I would first ask her, like, what does she enjoy doing? What does she think really? What are the words that define her? And there's questions you can ask these students. In fact, I know I'm teaching at a high school in the Bronx here in a few weeks and I'm teaching high school students the same thing, which is ask yourself, what could you do forever?
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
And you just lose track of time because you're just so lost in the flow. What would you like to be known for? What would you be proud to say that you do? Those are the kinds of questions you should really ask yourself and then talk to people in those fields.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
You'd be surprised who you could reach out to and actually just get a 15 minute brain date with them because people love to talk about their jobs and themselves. And then I would say try and get an apprenticeship doing one of those jobs. If you're in college, now's your time to experiment. And even when you get out of college, right?
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
It's not once you choose a career, you have to stick with it the rest of your life. But I would start to actually do a little bit more introspection before you just go out and look at a job. A lot of kids, I can just speak here in the States, they fall into the trap of they look at the jobs that make the most money. And
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
Yeah, maybe they'll make a lot of money, but it might not be the right fit for them. They might not be happy. So I think doing a little bit more definition first, there's a lot of jobs that make a lot of money, and they don't have to be banking or consulting. Or tech, by the way.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
A couple things. I feel, hopefully, I think it's important as parents to be role models. We talk a lot about our career. We're proud of our career, my husband and I, and what we do. And I think that's important so they can understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of your day, right? So they don't just think that every job is great. They see the reality of it.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I also bring my kids along with me to my work. And they have traveled to many countries with me around the world to see me work, to see me speak, to see me do book signings, to see me do workshops. And it's really interesting to see. My daughter came with me once to doing a speech at Google. They gave her a tour and she says, work always like this? I said, no.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
She got a flavor for what work could be, what are different roles. And she met different people. So those are some of the things I model it. I bring them with me and I have them meet lots of different people. So they can get their own ideas of what's important to them. My daughter, I should say my son, he's in the business school and he is going into consulting.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
That's what he wants to do and be an entrepreneur. And my daughter at school, she's a volunteer firefighter and she was at the FBI this summer. So she's got a very different path for herself. And I think that's cool.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I'd love that.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I think, first of all, Just deciding that you want to is helpful, right? Because I think a lot of people put up with chaos because they feel that it's part of hustle culture. It's busy, right? And busy makes us feel valuable. I think a lot of people also just put up with simplicity, excuse me, complexity, because they feel that it makes them valuable by doing more.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
They typically are rewarded for doing more, not valuable. And they think that they can multitask their way through it, and they can't. It's not just that work is at a breaking point, people are. And so being able to set that you want to simplify is the first step. The second thing is defining what meaningful work is.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
And so as an individual, it would be really helpful to write down all the things that you do in a typical month. And circle the ones that you think are actually meaningful, valuable. And what you'll find is that not many of them are. They're obligations. They're necessary work of work things, status meetings, reports, all that.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
The things that aren't circled, that aren't valuable, you really have to take a hard look at and say, can I get rid of some of these? Can I change the frequency on them? Can I put them on a time diet? And what that forces you to do is really think about why you do what you do. We don't question the way we work. And What happens is typically we get very defensive.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
We get very defensive because we think there's nothing we can get rid of and that's not true. The other thing that we, once you look through your list and you try to get rid of things or change things that you do, the other, the second half to the exercise is then defining what do you wish you could do?
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
What do you want to spend your, if you just don't like what you're doing, then what do you wish you were doing? And I don't mean like changing your job. What don't you like about your job? What do you wish you were doing more of in your job that you were hired to do? That's going to help you define what meaningful work is to you.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
So that kind of gives you a compass and that allows you to make better choices with your time. The last thing I would say to people, not just deciding you want to do it and then defining it, is really being good about deleting things. And deleting things means saying no. And if you can't say no to meetings or to reports or being included, opt out a couple times and see what happens.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
Start using the phrase yes if. And the reason that's good is we always think we have to yes and things. In a creative setting, yes and building on is great. In a work setting, it's bad because you are constantly adding. Yes if is if someone asks you to do things, put boundaries on it. Don't just... Make it a transaction with them. It's not okay for someone to take your time.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
So say, sure, I can do that if you do something for me. I can do it in this timeline. I can make something else. Not a priority, right? There's trade-offs. And I think that starts to teach people that when you request other people's time, you better be willing to know what you're willing to trade off for it. And those are some simple things to get started.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that we can do personally at home too, outside of work. And it's easy that you say, it's interesting that you say this because we do tend to think that even in our homes, more is better collecting those kinds of things. It's really, I think it's cathartic. I am a really big organizer, but I'm a big purger.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I like to get rid of things and only keep the things that have meaning. And one of the best things like that Marie Kondo ever did was, and this is a key difference. She didn't just organize things, right? Because being organized is not being simplified. Those are different. She didn't go in and just organize your closet.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
She got rid of the things that were cluttering it up, that were getting in the way of the things that you enjoyed. And then organized everything, what was left. And that's the key thing for people is it's not about organizing. It's about simplifying. And getting rid of it is really important. If you could just go through and get rid of half your stuff, your life would transform.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I'd even say get rid of 10% of your stuff. Your life would transform. The weight comes off you because you feel less of a mental heaviness being burdened by things that don't add any value to your life. They clutter you from using the things that have meaning. you will feel more relaxed because that's the secret about simplicity, which is simplicity is not about organizing.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
It is about focusing on what matters and it is about being able to use more of what matters. That includes your time. The other thing is it is a You see it in yourself and you see it at work. It impacts the culture because people feel more valued. They're spending their time on things that they feel are worth it. It is a mental health imperative. People feel less stressed. They feel more focused.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
They feel happier when things are simplified. And that's important for us as people and as leaders to know as well.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
I think it has never been more important for us to build human skills because AI will be able to do lots of tasks for us. But what it can't do are the things that, yet, the things that are inherently human. Being curious, right? Asking the right question, right, with prompts. AI can give you lots of answers, but you have to know how to ask good questions. Being very creative.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
AI, I'm a writer, and I put things into AI all the time, into ChatGPT or into Gemini. And it gets you a good start and it can organize my thinking, but I'm a better writer. I'm more human. I can connect on a meaning level. It also isn't good with humor or play on words. those little nuances that only humans can relate to.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
So I think teaching those kinds of skills that are creative, curious, agility, empathy, those are really great skills that AI can't give you yet. And I think it's never been more important to teach those as part of leaders at every level. I hope that companies start to shift towards that. There's too much depth in technical skills and not enough in human skills.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
We've got a good approach, I'll say, because this is what we do. We help people be future ready, that's what we like to say, by teaching these human-centered skills or what we call power skills. They used to be called soft skills, right? I think that's a passe term now, you know, because they're not soft makes them seem weak.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
And actually, I believe these human-centered skills are what make you stronger. That's important to know. And they are less skill. They are skills, but they're more mindsets, to your point. Having an agility mindset, a resilience approach, a curiosity mindset. Those are different than having an AI skill because they're how you approach certain things.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
We teach people by there's the reason why they're important. We first have people the why. And then we actually give people techniques to do it and we we apply it to work. That's how you use these skills.
Chief Change Officer
#244 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part Two
So, for example, if you want people to be curious, we teach them the technique around asking killer questions and killer questions is about how do you learn how to ask really good open ended questions that are provocative, creative and really make you think. And there's certain ways to stem a question and then we apply it to work.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Yeah. First of all, the reason for simplicity is because originally I started my organization based on creativity and innovation, and that's coming up with new ideas and affecting change. And what I realized is that while a lot of people would like to do that, they're exhausted by change.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And the reason they're exhausted by change and they resist it is because it's not that they don't want to do it and they don't want to innovate. They don't have time. Too much is getting in their way. So the front end of innovation isn't getting new ideas.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
The start of innovation is about simplifying, getting rid of the things that are not essential, that are not necessary to create the space for thinking and change to happen. We do not have enough time to think. We don't have enough time to change. We don't have enough time to think of breakthrough ideas. That's why simplicity is so important.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
So what we do is we focus on simplicity, innovation, and leadership, which is basically studying change. within companies. And it starts with a foundation of simplicity because too many people are drowning in the unplanned and unnecessary.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
We help them get rid of that through some structured techniques that we've worked with hundreds of thousands of people around the world with Google and Amazon and many of the others you've talked about. And then we help them create the space, right, to better embrace, to better create leaders for tomorrow.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
We get rid of the things that aren't working so they can better build teams, so they can have a better culture, so they have time to collaborate. We give them the skills to not just get rid of things, but to be future ready. So that's where being a futurist really helps. It really allows people to get the skills that will help them better embrace change for the future.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
We've got to get teams thinking ahead. rather than drowning in today.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Let me give you an example. When we started working with Pfizer, their CEO realized that they were drowning in unnecessary work because one of the things that they had ranked lowest in in their employee engagement survey was ability to get things done. And that's a problem. That means you can't focus. You can't move fast enough. You're not able to create change.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
So he decided that he wanted his whole organization to simplify. Our organization was brought in to train their 40 simplicity champions around the world. And to do that, it starts by inspiring people and aligning them that simplicity and subtraction is just as important in your work as addition. We always like to add things, but we never think to subtract.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
I actually inspire large teams through keynotes to do that and set the stage for management's vision. My teams then come in and with these simplicity champions at Pfizer, we taught them a technique that they could use over and over again. Because complexity is like a weed, it grows back. You have to keep getting rid of it. And that technique was called kill a stupid rule.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
You tell people if they could share and get rid of any rule at work that would help them be more innovative, reach their goals, move faster, what would they be? And the only rule to this game is that it has to be within their sphere of control, within their team. Because we want to affect change on a daily basis. We want to give them hours back in their day, right?
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Not complain about legal and procurement and all that stuff they have no control over. Teams came up with thousands of rules, thousands. They saved millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of hours, and the things that they came up with were silly daily work. It could be unnecessary zombie meetings. It could be reports.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
It could be old practices and processes that were had too many steps, but nobody took the time to question them. It could be redundant phone calls or follow ups that were no longer necessary. It was inviting too many people to meetings or copying too many people on email. Simple work of work things. By creating that practice for them and arming them with a simple technique, we changed the culture.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
We taught them that getting rid of is more important than doing more. And I'm not surprised that they were able to come up with a vaccine during the pandemic as quickly as they did, because they had laid the groundwork in advance to get rid of the things that were taking them away from the things that mattered. Because that's what simplicity does. It lets you focus on what matters.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And that's innovation and change.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
I think, first of all, just deciding that you want to is helpful, right? Because I think a lot of people put up with chaos because they feel that it's part of hustle culture. It's busy, right? And busy makes us feel valuable. I think a lot of people also just put up with simplicity, excuse me, complexity, because they feel that it makes them valuable by doing more.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
They typically are rewarded for doing more, not valuable. And they think that they can multitask their way through it. And they can't. It's not just that work is at a breaking point. People are. And so being able to set that you want to simplify is the first step. The second thing is defining what meaningful work is.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And so as an individual, it would be really helpful to write down all the things that you do in a typical month. And circle the ones that you think are actually meaningful, valuable. And what you'll find is that not many of them are. They're obligations. They're necessary work of work things, status meetings, reports, all that.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
The things that aren't circled, that aren't valuable, you really have to take a hard look at and say, can I get rid of some of these? Can I change the frequency on them? Can I put them on a time diet? And what that forces you to do is really think about why you do what you do. We don't question the way we work. And What happens is typically we get very defensive.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
We get very defensive because we think there's nothing we can get rid of, and that's not true. The other thing that we, once you look through your list and you try to get rid of things or change things that you do, the other, the second half to the exercise is then defining what do you wish you could do?
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I know we're going to have a very interesting discussion, so let's do it.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
What do you want to spend your, if you just don't like what you're doing, then what do you wish you were doing? And I don't mean like changing your job. What don't you like about your job? What do you wish you were doing more of in your job that you were hired to do? That's going to help you define what meaningful work is to you.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
So that kind of gives you a compass and that allows you to make better choices with your time. The last thing I would say to people, not just deciding you want to do it and then defining it, is really being good about deleting things. And deleting things means saying no. And if you can't say no to meetings or to reports or being included, opt out a couple times and see what happens.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Start using the phrase yes if. And the reason that's good is we always think we have to yes and things. In a creative setting, yes and building on is great. In a work setting, it's bad because you are constantly adding. Yes if is if someone asks you to do things, put boundaries on it. Don't just... Make it a transaction with them. It's not okay for someone to take your time.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
So say, sure, I can do that if you do something for me. I can do it in this timeline. I can make something else. Not a priority, right? There's trade-offs. And I think that starts to teach people that when you request other people's time, you better be willing to know what you're willing to trade off for it. And those are some simple things to get started.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
My parents were entrepreneurs and that's right. Sure, I got the idea to go off on my own rather than working at an organization. And that, in fact, was the case. I got out of business school and I went into advertising because I was always a very creative person, but I was very good at business. Right. So I could write and I could really help the creatives out within the ad agency.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
But what I was really good at was selling their ideas. And so I wanted to teach people how to be more creative or more innovative. It was just when the term innovation was coming into vogue. And I started off on my own, actually, after being in advertising for several years, because I said, I need to teach people how to do this.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And that's what made me start, was actually consulting and teaching people how to get better ideas. Early in my career then, when I owned my business, I also met somebody who was a futurist. And I thought, these people have great ideas. What is a futurist? And this is before anyone even talked about futurists.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
I met a guy, his name was Andy Hines, and he was the head futurist at Dow Chemical Company here in the States. And I said, what do you do? What is a futurist? He taught me about how there is a structured way that you can approach change and actually drive it rather than react to it. I became a futurist. I studied futuring. It's called foresight. I got my certificate in it.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
I worked with all the top people who teach it around the world. And that made me a better idea and creative person. And I brought that to my company, Future Think, as how we can help people better manage change and respond to change as well as drive it. And I think that's what makes my business different than others. It's not just about creativity and coming up with ideas.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
It's how you actually react as well as prepare for change. And that's what we're good at teaching. So that's what I do.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
It was risky. I think you have to have a stomach for it, as they say. You have to be able to be prepared that you are your own safety net. When you work at a big company, there is lots of other people to support you. You are making change with somebody else's money. And you are taking measured risks within what we say guardrails.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And if you fail, there's some level of, it's okay, you're not going to lose your job. When you're an entrepreneur, all that goes away. It's your money, it's your risk, and it's your reward. And it's all up to you, 100%. You have to really have confidence. You have to be a risk taker.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
You have to be an idea person and you have to be willing to pivot a lot because everyone thinks that the future of creating your destiny is a straight line and it is the squiggliest, windiest road that goes back and forth that you've ever seen. And I think that it takes a certain type of person to be able to do that. I think at first it was a lot. It was blind faith, as they say.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
It was a big leap. But I'm glad I did it because I'm in control of my life, not someone else.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Never. No, I don't know many entrepreneurs that, true entrepreneurs that ever say, oh, I'm just going to go back. No, they do. Like people go back and forth like that's their exit or it didn't work out. They go back for a little bit because of money, right? But they eventually leave. They have... You know what they say, they have to scratch that itch.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
They always are itching to do something different. And the appeal of being on their own and creating something that they can say, I did that, is usually so strong that people don't stay at companies very long.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Hmm. I think you have to always have a plan. My original thought was I'm going to teach people how to be. I think everyone is creative, not just certain people within companies. And back then, that was the thinking, which is we're in advertising. Only certain people that sit in the creative department could be creative thinkers. And we all know now, 25, 30 years hence, that's wrong, right?
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Everyone needs to be innovative within a company, whether it's procurement or legal or product development. Everyone has a role. And my vision early on was just that. And it proved to be right. How I did it is very different then than it is now. It used to be teaching people in workshops. I still do that. But now I've written books. I have on-demand courses. I keynote. So there's coach.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
There's many different ways that I go about it. So it's evolved over time. I think that's the best entrepreneurs is and this relates to futuring. So I'll segue into that a little bit. They know when to pivot because nothing stays the same. You have to be ready to adapt to the cultural zeitgeist. So, for example, we used to teach courses that were several days long. Now, are you kidding?
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
People want them in an hour or less. Things have rapidly changed. We had to respond to that. That's actually what futurists do. They don't just teach people how to respond to change, but they do it themselves. Futuring is about realizing there are multiple possible futures. There's not one.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And so you think through different scenarios that could be in the next five, 10 or 15 years, and you prepare for them. And you say, if this happens, this is what we could be. If this happens, this is what we could be. And these are the things I would need to do. I would need different staff. I would need different technology. I would need different investment.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
And what's nice about that is thinking through different scenarios helps you prepare for change. And actually, how do I want to say it? You're more resilient as a result.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Yeah, we can talk about that. It is very trendy, but no one, the people that call themselves that, that are really about trend spotting, that's not futuring. They just say they're futurists because that makes them, that tries to elevate them and like their predictor, like they're business psychics. Anyone that is a true futurist, like myself,
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
has studied foresight and there are models and tools and approaches to it. It's not just reading about the latest trends and having your clients jump on them. That's a waste of time and money. It's about teaching your clients about hunting grounds, opportunities, multiple scenarios so they can prepare for change. It's a studied approach to the future. It's not, I don't know, reading about trends.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
That's a big difference.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
Yeah, it's a studied approach to change rather than giving your clients topics that they need to read about. Sure, I could go in and, for example, everyone now is an expert in AI. They're futurists in AI. Now, how is that possible that there are that many? Because they're not all real. They read the other people's, then read the other people's. They're just copying each other.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
How you apply that learning is what makes a futurist. Anybody can come up with content, how you apply it and actually create it into different scenarios for different businesses. That's what futurists do. And it's also different than business consulting because these are studied models for change, not just business strategy. So a futurist might look. 10, 20, 30 years in the future.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
They might look very far out. Or they might put you out into the future then make you back into that future. There's lots of techniques that they use to help you figure out different paths forward. And they're usually longer term trends than what a consultant would do. Consultants are helping you up your shareholder value. Of course, they're making longer term business plans.
Chief Change Officer
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
They're probably the closest thing to a futurist there is, but their time horizons are different. They're shorter. They're usually one, three, five years, right? You plan out quarter by quarter. Futurists aren't going to do that probably.