Creativity coach Lisa Bodell is the founder and CEO of Futurethink, an innovation consultancy.
Over the years, she has developed a system of turning tired, risk averse corporate cultures into inventive powerhouses.
In her system Bodell tells you to kill the company before someone else does.
She urges you to look at your company from the eyes of a ruthless competitor. Find your weaknesses, think about the future of your industry and imagine innovative ways of getting there.
Key takeaways
Ideas are never an issue. All employees in an organisation are brimming with ideas. It’s the bureaucratic culture that stifles innovation.
Employees should be given thinking time. Just sit and think. Do nothing but think.
Forget imagining a bright future. Instead don the hat of a ruthless competitor and think about the various ways in which they can kill your company.
Identify ways to circumvent the challenges posed by the step above.
Have a “Created by the employees. For the employees” culture. Your employees know the problems innately and are better equipped to come up with innovative solutions to solve them.
Take tiny steps. Focus on small quick wins. It’s always consistency over intensity. Be consistent.
The only thing constant is change. So create a burning platform. A fire that rouses your people to envision threats and come up with innovative solutions.
A complacent culture is worse than a negative one. In such a culture complacency sets in. Your people are satisfied but not engaged because the firm seems to be performing fine. And even if they have ideas to offer, the firms leadership will not welcome it. Keeping their heads down is safer. When people give up like this they soon don’t care anymore. In such a scenario you end up having a workforce of drones who may do what you ask but little else.
Stop the ASAP habit. Exactly when are your people going to find time to think and innovate when every task is labelled urgent and was due yesterday.
Be inspiring as the leader of your firm. Walk the talk. If you want to inspire innovation then you have to be inspiring.
The Book
The above takeaways are just the tip of the iceberg. I would highly recommend the book ‘Kill The Company’ if you are interested in a deep dive about this concept and the tools required to run this exercise in your organisation.
In Conclusion
By asking your employees to don the hat of a ruthless competitor exploiting your weakness and grabbing opportunities you may get more truth and insights about your business.
Until we look under the hoods at our own companies and examine the structural elements that are hindering employees abilities to question and challenge and think, we are not going to get results.
Instead of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” try “If it ain’t broke, break it“
