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Lisa Bodell
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Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters 1st Edition

by Lisa Bodell (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 200 ratings
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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.

Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    1629561290
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1629561295
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Routledge
  5. Publication date
    October 18, 2016
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6.3 x 0.79 x 9.21 inches
  8. Print length
    240 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Why Simple Wins makes a compelling case against the scourge of complexity. Lisa Bodell shows that simplification can be the competitive advantage of our time, helping us to be more innovative, more adaptable, and better positioned to thrive and truly have an impact." -- Arianna Huffington, Author of Thrive and The Sleep Revolution

"There are two ways to achieve simplicity: ignorance and elegance. Lisa Bodell empowers us to move toward the elegant, delivering practical tools for reducing time wasted on low-value tasks so we can free up energy for innovative thinking." -- Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give And Take

"Americans work among the longest hours of any advanced economy. We're time starved, busy, burned out and disengaged at work. But far from throwing up her hands in despair, Lisa Bodell uses compelling real world stories, eye-popping statistics and practical hands-on tools to show how work itself has become too complex, and how simplifying can help reclaim what's gotten lost: time for work that matters. Why simple Wins is a must-read for 21st century workplaces." -- Brigid Schulte, award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love & Play when No One has the Time and director of the Better Life Lab at New America

"Complexity is at the center of the world's most significant challenges. Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on the single most significant leadership priority of this era. We need to simplify everything!" -- Bill McDermott, Chief Executive Officer, SAP

"Through Why Simple Wins, Lisa Bodell demonstrates that simplification is more than another buzzword. It must become our new way of working." -- Frank Brown, Managing Director and COO, General Atlantic, and Former Dean of INSEAD

"Lisa Bodell unearths the root of complexity: the fears, need for control, and risk aversion of human beings. She also shows us the path toward simplicity, where removing layers of process and bureaucracy becomes an ethical imperative." -- Joel Klein, Chief Policy & Strategy Officer, Oscar Insurance; former Chancellor, New York City Public Schools

"For anyone who feels buried in unanswered emails, unproductive meetings, and endless to-do lists, Bodell's book is a must-read. She explains why complexity often gets the best of our companies and lives--and she provides practical methods and tools that can yield much-needed simplicity." -- Warren Berger, Bestselling author of A More Beautiful Question

"Once again, Bodell hits the bullseye; this time with Why Simple Wins. She presents a compelling case that complexity is killing organizations--backed up with stone-cold data--and then delivers practical and effective tools to enable leaders to make simplification a habit. True to her message, Bodell conveys it all through the use of storytelling." - Camille Mirshokrai, Managing Director Leadership Development and Succession Planning, Accenture

"The most successful people I know are not the most busy: they're the ones who can cut through the clutter and focus their energies on what really matters. Knowing why and how to do that is essential for all us. In Why Simple Wins Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on how too often we create and collude in the frustrating, time wasting systems we rail against. In doing so, she makes a compelling - and simple - case for making simplification a habit, and she gives us the practical tools to do just that. If you think you don't have time to read this book, you may need to more than you know." -- Sir Ken Robinson, educator and New York Times Best Selling Author, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

About the Author

Lisa Bodell believes in the power of simplification. She is the founder and CEO of futurethink, a company that uses simple techniques to help organizations embrace change and increase their capability for innovation. She brings her compelling message to over 100,000 people a year, showing them how to eliminate mundane and unnecessary tasks from their everyday routine so that they have more time for work that matters. Bodell has transformed teams within organizations like Google, Novartis, Accenture, and more. Drawing on her practical Midwestern upbringing and entrepreneurial background, she has used the power of simplification to launch three successful businesses, write two books (Kill the Company and Why Simple Wins), travel to over 40 countries and 48 states, and sit on boards such as Novartis Diversity and Inclusion Board and the Global Advisory Council for the World Economic Forum.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (October 18, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1629561290
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1629561295
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.68 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 0.79 x 9.21 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 200 ratings

About the author

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Lisa Bodell

Lisa Bodell

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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 30 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 and Inclusion Board in Basel, Switzerland. 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.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
200 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

MRM
5.0 out of 5 stars Great insights for becoming more impactful at work
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2019
Verified Purchase
"Why Simple Wins" was a great read; I highly recommend it. The material was logically organized and provides lots of pertinent examples and exercises so that you can put the lessons to work. It was eloquently written (definitely not a given for business books), and I found it engaging throughout. I think the approach taken in this book is quite fresh, focused, and SIMPLE! It's helping me at work to become more disciplined and thoughtful about cutting out wasteful, time-consuming aspects of my job in order to be more productive, innovative, and impactful. Some of the suggestions need broader buy-in at the more senior levels of the organization, but as is pointed out in the book: one of the first steps to take is to contribute to greater organizational awareness of the problems associated with needless complexity and, on the flip side, the opportunities that come from simplifying. A lot of great material in this book for making a convincing argument. Should be mandatory reading!
2 people found this helpful
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James T.
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
Good pointers
One person found this helpful
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J. Nagy
5.0 out of 5 stars Wish I Had Read This Earlier in My Career
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2021
Verified Purchase
Having worked in many of the cultures that Bodell explores in Why Simple Wins, I found myself nodding my head regularly in response to the situations. Moreover, I found myself wishing I'd discovered the book sooner. The insights, perspectives, and tips shared in this book could have brought endless value to my prior organizations. If you are looking to bring fresh perspective and new value into your organization, check this book out for practical techniques on how to make it happen through simplification.
2 people found this helpful
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Luis Patarroyo
3.0 out of 5 stars Great insights but repeatitive
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2020
Verified Purchase
This book condenses a practical guidance with good examples. The tools and questions are simple to follow. Although, it tends to repeat the same kind of information or message, creating redundancy.
Overall, it could be streamlined to get the core message with less pages. But, I will read it as needed to get guidance.
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Robert Clauser
5.0 out of 5 stars This insightful – and truly simple - set of tools by Bodell has already helped my colleagues peel away unnecessary complexity an
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2016
Verified Purchase
Lucille Ball famously said “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” With the same wit and intelligence as Lucy, Lisa Bodell in Why Simple Wins counsels companies on how to strip away the busyness of its people to focus on the work that is most value additive. This insightful – and truly simple - set of tools by Bodell has already helped my colleagues peel away unnecessary complexity and take back time and energy to do the work that we want and need to do to win in this anything but simple economic environment.
7 people found this helpful
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Hande Z
4.0 out of 5 stars Nothing simpler
Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2018
Occam’s Razor declares that ‘That which can be done with less is done in vain with more’. Bodell’s book explains why this axiom is crucial in the corporate world and the large institutions of the modern world. When asked ‘How would you describe the most important aspect of your role in the organization?’ the CEOs whose companies were inconsistent in their performance would answer ‘creating a vision’, building a special corporate culture’, or developing a specific business strategy. When the same question was asked of the CEOs of leading corporations, most said that they would ‘simplify the lives of those who worked for them’.

That is an important note. It means that it is important that CEOs read this book. The rest of us should too, in case we become CEOs and are charged for making the jobs of our subordinates meaningful. This book is clear and simple. It practises what it preaches. It covers many areas in which we make things more complicated instead of simplifying them. Bodell knows that everyone knows how useless meetings can be and yet we keep scheduling them and attending them. She provides some reasons why we do so, and then helps us resolve to change all that.

Bodell has fine examples to illustrate her points. One of which is the story of the B-52 ‘Stratofortress’ bomber, launched in 1952, and is still flying today – because the many replacement models the Air Force planned to have taken over this old plane ‘were too complicated to be pressed into service’. Bodell has many instructive rules to help us simplify our work lives. Two of my favourites are: ‘Kill stupid rules’ and ‘Kill stupid meetings’. Nothing waste time more than these two factors.

Once done with this book, we can all qualify to a CSO – Chief Simplification Officer.
4 people found this helpful
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Roberto Carrasco
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is really helpul
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2019
Verified Purchase
If you're looking for a lecture to start reflecting about how to make your work more effective , this is the right one. Provides good examples , and guides you on how the technology is making us less effective at work ( and how to avoid this to happen). I didn't see the toolkit yet , but for sure I will.
2 people found this helpful
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Camille M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Eliminate Complexity in your Organization
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2016
Verified Purchase
Why Simple Wins is one of the best business books I’ve read in a long time. It goes a long way toward achieving organizational change by helping leaders and their teams move beyond the feelings of frustration that come with so much unproductive work in today’s corporate world—and how they can effectively embed simplification throughout an organization.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Orlando Barbosa
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente livro
Reviewed in Brazil on August 17, 2019
Verified Purchase
Excelente livro
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Kose
2.0 out of 5 stars Could have been much shorter
Reviewed in Germany on October 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
Some good stuff in the book but overall too long and lots of repetition
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Dalton Marshall
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book!
Reviewed in Canada on March 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
From my Lean Coach point of view, the approach to simplification and the tools provided are an incredible supplement for my toolkit. For me, it helps ‘simplify’ my approach to introducing my new customers to lean methodology as well as generate quick wins.
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Estelle O'C
4.0 out of 5 stars Untangle Work Processes for a Competitive Edge
Reviewed in Australia on April 23, 2021
Verified Purchase
This book is easy to read and a valuable insight to how complex our working lives have become and how we can gain a competitive edge by simplifying things. The exercises are also great for teams. Well worth reading!
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2017
Verified Purchase
Easy to read , good examples and tools in the book ! Written in simple style .
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