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Chief Change Officer™
#243 Lisa Bodell: The Future is Simple—If We Stop Overcomplicating Everything — Part One
00:28:16
Lisa Bodell, a Top 40 global speaker on simplification, innovation, and change, has built a career helping companies stop drowning in complexity and start thinking ahead. As the CEO of FutureThink, she’s worked with giants like Google and Pfizer to kill pointless rules, simplify work, and make change actually happen—without the usual corporate chaos. Part One.
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- [00:13]
A
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change, progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today we are talking about the future of work, innovation and why most companies make change way harder than it needs to be. My guest is Lisa Quadell, the top 40 global speaker on simplification, innovation and change, as well as the CEO of FutureThink. She's helped companies like Google and Pfizer cut through the clutter, kill pointless rules and actually get things done. In this two part series, we'll dive into her journey. How she went from advertising to futurism, why most organizations resist change, and how simplicity is the secret weapon for real innovation. We'll also unpack why AI won't replace human skills, but over complicated systems just might. If you've ever sat in a meeting thinking this could have been an email, you won't want to miss this one. Let's get started. Lisa, good morning to you. Welcome to Chief Change Officer. I'm so excited to host you.
- [02:30]
B
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. Sure.
- [02:37]
A
Lisa, you've done a lot and you are still doing a lot through FutureThink, the platform you started 20 years ago. That was before the iPhone, before AI became mainstream, yet you were already thinking ahead, already focused on the future. Now, 20 years is a long journey and I know we can't cover everything in just one conversation. So let's focus on the key moments. Let's start with your story before Future Think. What led you to this? What triggered you to start it? Maybe a bit of your background, both personal and career, and then how Future Think has evolved over the last two decades. Let's start there.
- [03:37]
B
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. 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, 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. 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. I work 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, FutureThink 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. 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.
- [05:31]
A
Wow. So in your own career, you started in the corporate world and then transitioned out. And this was way before coaching, entrepreneurship and tech starts up became mainstream. You've been in the consulting and coaching space for a long time. Looking back, how would you describe your own evolution? Would you call it reinvention? When you made the move, stepping out of that safety net into solo entrepreneurship, what was that experience like?
- [06:14]
B
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. And if you fail, there's some level of it's okay, you're not gonna 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, you have to be an idea person and you have to be willing to pivot a lot because everyone thinks that the future, creating your destiny, is a straight line and it is the squiggliest, windiest road that go 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. It was a big leap. But I'm glad I did it because I'm in control of my life, not someone else.
- [07:27]
A
You started this journey way ahead of the curse, before it was the norm, and it must have been scary. It was definitely risky. Were there moments when you thought, maybe I should just go back to corporate America? Did you ever question your decision?
- [07:51]
B
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. 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.
- [08:23]
A
Earlier you mentioned learning about futurism, how you got inspired by someone in the field, study it, and eventually step into that role yourself. Now you are helping organizations navigate their future. Before we dive into organizational change, I want to ask more about your journey. When you took that leap of faith, when you left behind the old path to create a new future for yourself, did you already have a clear vision? Did you see exactly where you were heading? Did you know, this is it. This is my future. These are the steps I need to take. Or were you still figuring things out, navigating any as you went?
- [09:25]
B
Hmm. I think you have to always have a plan. Like my original thought was, I'm gonna 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? 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. I. 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, 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? 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. They. But they do it themselves. Futuring is about realizing there are multiple possible futures. There's not 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. I would need different staff, I would need different technology, I would need different investment. 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.
- [11:24]
A
As you were explaining, I kept thinking about decision trees. I studied finance. And back in business school, we actually covered this in a class that connected economics with strategy. Professors taught us about decision trees. And if you go deep into the math, you get into Monte Carlo simulations, big data, and statistical models. But stepping away from the numbers, the idea still applies. Different scenarios lead to different risks, different uncertainties, and different possible paths. And from what you shared so far, futurists help people master change. Not just react to it, but own it, master it, and drive it. Over the last 10 years, the term futurist has become much more common. A lot of people now call themselves one.
- [12:42]
B
Yeah, we can talk about that. That's what it's. 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 futurist because that makes them. That tries to elevate them. And like they're predicting. They're like, they. They're like they're business psychics. Anyone that is a true futurist like myself 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, that's a big difference.
- [13:33]
A
So basically what you're saying is that futurism is both a science and an art, is back by models, data and research, but at the same time is people shaped by real life experience. When you work with clients, it's not just about the numbers. You can actually guide them on what to do, what not to do, what risks to watch for, and where the real opportunities are.
- [14:09]
B
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. They're just copying each other. 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. 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. 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.
- [15:32]
A
Last time I spoke with a guest who has worked with companies like Microsoft and Amazon, helping them with communication, marketing and narrative. Now he has his own practice. Basically you could call him a storyteller. So I asked him, hey, Chris, everybody calls themselves storyteller these days. What do you think? And of course he has his own take. In fact, he calls himself a strategic narrative advisor because he still works with executives and companies, but wanted a title that better reflects what he actually does. Storytelling is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot, maybe even overused. And I feel like futurist is the same way. That's why I wanted to ask about your interpretation. What Futurist truly means to you. You own it, you run future, think and this is the work of you do. I checked out your website and you got a huge range of courses, training organizations and teams to drive change, innovate and adapt. But one theme that keeps coming up is simplicity. It's something you clearly champion. So let's talk about that on an organizational level. What does simplicity mean to you and why is this so important in driving real change?
- [17:34]
B
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 changes. And what I realized is that while a lot of people would like to do that, they're exhausted by change. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. We've got to get teams thinking ahead rather than drowning in today.
- [19:20]
A
You've worked with so many different companies, small, medium and big, without naming names. Can you share an example? Lets say a business comes to you and Says, hey, Lisa, I want to work with you. What does that process look like? I'm curious. What kind of things do you typically help them get rid of? Can you walk us through an example?
- [19:48]
B
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. 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. 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. 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? 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, it could be old practices and processes that 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 emails. Simple work of work things. By creating that practice for them and arming them with a simple technique, we changed the culture. 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 and that's innovation and change.
- [22:33]
A
Simplicity matters not just for organizations and teams to work more efficiently. Simplicity matters not just for organizations and teams to work more efficiently and productively, but also for us as individuals. When we first met, you mentioned that this concept applies to everyone and I completely agree. Especially in today's world, social media, endless noise, misinformation is super overwhelming. And with mental health being a major issue, simplifying our lives feels more important than ever. So how can we do that? How can we personally practice simplicity in a way that helps us stay focused, clear headed and mentally strong?
- [23:36]
B
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. 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. 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. The things that aren't circle 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. 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 of the exercise is then defining what do you wish you could do? 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. 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. 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. 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 that those are some simple things to get started.
- [26:56]
A
That's it for today. We've unpacked Lisa's journey from an agency to filterism and why most companies make change way harder than it needs to be. But there's more. Next time, we're diving into the real problem holding back innovation complexity. Lisa shares how she's helped companies like Google and Pfizer kill pointless rules, simplify work, and free up time for what actually matters. If you've ever felt buried under unnecessary tasks, you won't want to miss part two. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe. Subscribe to our show, Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.