Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters

Lisa Bodell

Oct 2016 · Routledge

About this ebook

Imagine what you could do with the time you spend writing emails every day. Complexity is killing companies' ability to innovate and adapt, and simplicity is fast becoming the competitive advantage of our time. Why Simple Wins helps leaders and their teams move beyond the feelings of frustration and futility that come with so much unproductive work in today's corporate world to create a corporate culture where valuable, essential, meaningful work is the norm. By learning how to eliminate redundancies, communicate with clarity, and make simplification a habit, individuals and companies can begin to recognize which activities are time-sucks and which create lasting value. Lisa Bodell's simplification method has several unique principles: Simplification is a skill that's available to us all, yet very few leaders use it. Simplification is the right thing to do--for our customers, for our company, and for each other. Operating with simplification as our core business model will make it easier to be respectful of each other's time. Simplification drives culture, and culture in turn drives employee engagement, customer relations, and overall productivity.

This book is inspired by Bodell's passion for eliminating barriers to innovation and productivity. In it, she explains why change and innovation are so hard to achieve--and it's not what you might expect. The reality is this: we spend our days drowning in mundane tasks like meetings, emails, and reports. These are often self-created complexities that prevent us from getting to the meaningful work that truly matters. Using simple stories and techniques, Why Simple Wins shows that by using simplicity as an operating principle, we can eliminate the busy work that puts a chokehold on us every day, and instead spend time on the work that we value.

Ratings and reviews

The message is good, but there's a lot of empty calories. It may benefit from editing to half its size. I'm partially-biased on its length though because I came to this book after exposure to the message in Lisa's articles and talks. If you buy the e-book like me, be aware that there isn't a simple means to take the "diagnostic survey" without re-writing it yourself. I'm not sure what this looks like in the audiobook. It's probably still worth a read for those of us in highly-regulated industries at risk for "Stockholm syndrome", but I think the author and/or publisher missed the mark by not making the self-assessment materials more accessible for e-readers. The risk is that, with the core message available in the author's other, free content, this book is redundant if its materials aren't readily available to make it practical.

About the author

As a globally recognized futurist and expert on innovation, Lisa Bodell ignites new thinking at every event with high energy, humor, and audience engagement.

Lisa Bodell is an award-winning author and CEO of futurethink. As a futurist and expert on the topic of change, she serves as a global council member of the World Economic Forum; and has helped thousands of senior leaders ignite innovation at Bloomberg, Pfizer, Lockheed Martin, and many others.

Lisa is an inspired speaker who has brought her message to over 40 countries and nearly 100,000 people each year. She has been rated as a top speaker at Google’s client events and is the author of the best-selling book Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution, which won the 2014 Axiom Best Business Book Award and was voted Best Business Book by USA Book News and Booz & Co. Her new book, Why Simple Wins, will be released October 2016. Lisa has appeared on NPR, FOX News, and in Fast Company, The New York Times, and WIRED. She is a frequent contributor to strategy+businesss, Forbes and Harvard Business Review.

Lisa is an advisor on the boards of the Association of Professional Futurists; and Novartis’ Diversity, Inclusion Board in Basel, Switzerland, and on the Global Advisory Council for the World Economic Forum. Among her many academic activities, Lisa has taught innovation and creativity at both American and Fordham Universities.

For more innovation news and ideas, follow Lisa on Twitter at: twitter.com/LisaBodell

To view clips of Lisa’s presentations, visit: youtube.com/futurethink.