Lisa Bodell is coming to SXSWi as the author of Kill the Company, and as an exemplary free thinker who’s out-of-the-box mindset feeds the spirit of the convention.
“This book is about the hypocrisy that exists within many businesses when it comes to innovation. Too often, when leaders say they want their teams to “be innovative,” they are sending a mixed message. They want people to come up with big ideas that involve very little risk. It’s like giving a child a big box of crayons and then making sure all they do is color within the lines. We all know the result of that exercise; nothing new or interesting ever comes of it,” says Bodell.
The Mad Men business model where a few fast talking, morally bent upper management types run an empire – has become an aging relic. Today, it’s the youthful business practice with non-linear ideas (and ping pong tables in the break room) that conquer. Bodell is a self-professed “recovering ad agency person”; she created the firm futurethink in order to train businesses how to be contemporarily innovative.
Bodell explains, “Being savvy and being innovative are not the same. Leaders may be very business savvy, but often we find they are savvy in the wrong ways for long-term success…They reward conformity and reduce risk. Innovation, on the other hand, involves being comfortable with change and taking on a certain level of risk.”
The creation of her firm and her recent book came from her own experience in a business structure that only accepted creativity from the people whom were hired to be ‘the creatives’.
“Since when were ideas the sole property of a single group within the company? A specialty that only a certain type of person could achieve? More importantly, if ideas and creating novel things were the job of only a handful of people, what kind of perspectives and solutions were we MISSING because we were limiting thinking overall? How much potential was simply going unrealized?”
This is a must-attend event for any business person (at any level in a company) who is looking to hit the reset button on how businesses think and designs their creative structure.
With clear passion and dedication to the concept of teachable innovation, Bodell says, “Change should be experienced—not just announced. Charging a group to simply start shaking things up and modeling behaviors is a more powerful way to get people to accept that change is possible versus hanging a poster in the cafeteria.”
Lisa Bodell speaking at a 2008 convention in Las Vegas about her beliefs surrounding the concept of innovation, and their practical applications.