November 19, 2024 • 44 mins
In this episode of Lean by Design, we’re joined by Lisa Bodell, CEO of FutureThink, to unpack a counterintuitive truth: complexity is innovation’s worst enemy. From her days in advertising to her role as a simplicity guru in biopharma, Lisa shares a journey fueled by one mission—cutting through the noise to make work... actually work.
Together, we get real about the meeting marathons, inbox floods, and busyness obsession that cloud judgment and strangle creativity. Lisa doesn’t just talk big ideas—she's here with tools and strategies, inspired by a "Marie Kondo" for the workplace approach, focusing on "killing stupid rules" and decluttering processes to create real impact and boost morale. It's about balancing people, process, and technology to make every minute matter and every task count.
And if you’re leading a team or growing a new company, here’s where it gets practical. Lisa shares her "You Me We" method to help leaders ditch ambiguity, clarify roles, and clear the path for true innovation. It’s time to go beyond the ping-pong tables and snack bars, finding purpose in work that drives the team forward.
Find out more about Lisa and Future Think:
- FutureThink https://www.futurethink.com/
- Lisa Bodell (Linkedin) https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-bodell-futurethink/
- Why Simple Wins (Amazon) https://a.co/d/dN6BEw3
- Kill the Company (Amazon) https://a.co/d/hunKBjU
Learn more about us by visiting: https://sigmalabconsulting.com/
Want our thoughts on a specific topic? Looking to sponsor this podcast to continue to generate content? Or maybe you have an idea and want to be on our show. Fill out our Interest Form and share your thoughts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a new episode of Lean by Design
podcast.
I'm your host, oscar Gonzalez,with my co-host, lawrence Wong,
and we are so excited for theguests we have on today and,
quite frankly, I had to pinchmyself to say is this really
happening?
Let me introduce you to LisaBodell.
She is the CEO of FutureThink,a company focused on helping
(00:25):
organizations simplify andinnovate by eliminating
unnecessary processes andbarriers All about what we're
doing here.
She is a best-selling author oftwo books, and I love these
titles Kill the Company, and inno time those will be on this
shelf because I am going todevour that content.
And in no time those will be onthis shelf because I am going
(00:47):
to devour that content.
Her approach emphasizescreating cultures of simplicity
and efficiency, making herexpertise so relevant in a space
like biopharma and biotech.
Lisa, welcome to our virtualstudio and thank you so much for
joining us today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh, thanks Oscar and thanks Lawrence.
I'm glad to be here.
Really, I'm really glad to behere and we're going to have a
good time talking about someprovocative things.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I can't wait.
That's Lawrence.
I love really digging deep andgetting dirty.
I really want to know where didthis start?
Where did this idea ofsimplicity and understanding
that there was a void to evenhave these conversations, what?
Tell us a little bit about yourjourney?
How did you get into this?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, you know, I was new from a young age.
I wanted to be an entrepreneurand I wanted to help people
merge the creative with thebusiness.
I was always a very creativeperson in a business environment
.
Right, I was.
I went into advertising and Iwas the business person in
advertising.
But I also realized I wasreally creative too and I wanted
to teach people how to do that,build more of that innovation
(01:51):
into their business.
And when I started to do it,people were really excited
because innovation was trendy.
Right, this was like this earlyZeds and everyone wanted to
brainstorm and have ideas.
But it never went anywhere.
And I was very frustratedbecause it was like a
performance bringing someonefrom the outside in teaching
people to be creative.
Right, we're going to have abrainstorm and then nothing goes
anywhere.
And the reason wasn't becausepeople weren't creative, and the
(02:15):
reason wasn't because peopledidn't know how.
It's that they didn't have thetime.
And I realized that the start ofinnovation is in ideas.
Everyone's got ideas.
It's that they don't have timeand that's where simplification
was born.
So it didn't matter howcreative you were if you didn't
have time to get to it.
So I really knew that the frontend of innovation was giving
people the space and time, andso that's where I really pivoted
(02:39):
my business from being aboutinnovation to being about
simplicity.
Because if you don't start byweeding the garden, business
from being about innovation tobeing about simplicity, because
if you don't start by weedingthe garden, you know rules and
complexity and unnecessary work.
It's like a weed it keepsgrowing back, and so we've got
to build systems in to allowpeople to know that it's okay to
get rid of things that areoutdated and not keep going with
the status quo.
So right, you as a scientistand you as an engineer, you have
(03:02):
processes in place, there'srules to be followed, but there
are so many unnecessary ones,and we've got to give people the
methods to get rid of stuffthat doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I feel that to such a degree and I think what you're
hitting is such an importantpart about creating the
opportunity for your brain to dothis work.
We're not being paid to becreative when we're at home,
when we're sleeping, and thenwe're just slaving over a
computer or whatever throughoutthe entire day.
(03:35):
I mean just the sheer amount ofthings that are happening
throughout a day really chokesany time that you have to stop
and say let me take a look atwhat's actually happening here.
Why are these things happening?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And that's the issue is like I'll ask people on stage
you know, what do you spendyour day doing?
And 100% of the time, the toptwo things are meetings and
emails.
People are I don't know anyonethat was drowned or that was
hired for their email andmeeting abilities, but they're,
as a scientist and engineer, youknow you're not hired for, you
(04:11):
know, running an amazing meeting, so we can't get to the work we
want to do.
And when you ask people here'sthe bigger thing when you ask
people, what do you wish youcould spend your time doing?
They've got a lot of ideas.
You know like it's.
It's like meeting withcustomers or coming up with new,
innovative I don't know newcompounds.
Whatever it is.
Most things they want to do aremore external and aspirational.
(04:32):
Where they spend their time isreally the mundane, the
unnecessary.
They've got to free people upfrom that slave of the busy.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Busy is not productivity.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It's not, because what they need is time to think.
I mean again, like if I askpeople when I'm on stage talking
, how many of you wish you hadmore time to think.
Every hand goes up.
Thinking is a daring act incompanies, because being busy
gives people more sense ofcomfort, a sense of value right,
(05:09):
the cult of business.
And being unbusy becausethinking has just become too
daring of an act right, it'slike it's intangible.
I can't just sit around andthink I'm going to get fired.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You know it's interesting because there's so
much of what Lawrence and I aredoing here that I still feel
guilty, myself running a company, that I'm sitting outside and
just sort of combing throughOkay, where can we go, where can
we take this processing All ofthe?
You know you have all thesemeetings.
You need in some, in some space, to just stop and say what do
(05:45):
all the things that we justtalked about actually mean?
What do we really care about?
And I still have trouble withthat where, you know, even
giving ourselves this luxury ofvacationing whenever you guys
want and you can ask Lawrence, Iprobably don't take as much
time as I should to really allowyour brain to think, and it's
(06:07):
just I don't know if it was theindustry that is sort of
ingrained that in me and now I'mtrying to pull out of that.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It's cultural.
I think it's bigger than justindustry, because everybody says
across industries they wishthey had more time to think,
because everybody says acrossindustries they wish they had
more time to think.
But, what's interesting,there's a paradox that happens
because people want more time tothink, because that's where you
process, that's where youreally hear what's inside right
Kind of head, heart, gut, ofwhat's bothering you, what's the
real solution you need to do,what's the hard thing that
(06:38):
really needs to be done.
But until it's quiet you don'treally understand it.
So we don't make the time to doit because we think that it's
not valuable, we'll be seen,it'll be wrong.
The other paradox is that whenwe actually do have the time to
be unbusy, we are incrediblyuncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
It's like being quiet .
Speaker 2 (07:01):
People don't know how to do it and so you're on the
right track.
That's what I always say toleaders.
If you start to feeluncomfortable because you are
unbusy, you're doing it right,because you're reteaching
yourself how to think and, yeah,that's a catharsis that you
need to go through, and Istruggle with it too, and I run
a thinking company, you know.
But so there's lots of ways todo that, to help people do it.
(07:24):
But that's the first step,which is realizing hey, when you
do get that time to think, whenyou finally give yourself
permission, it's gonna, it'sgonna feel weird.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
When, when was that point that in your company to
move from innovation to sort ofsimplicity at its finest?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, the it happened actually.
I talked about this in my bookand actually killed the company,
and it became the definingmoment for me for writing the
second book.
I went down, I was doing a verylarge project with a group of
GE and it was in Raleigh, durham, north Carolina, and there were
50 leaders and they wanted usto come in and help them think
about the future and beinnovative.
And I was doing all this trendresearch and fun presentations
(08:05):
and et cetera with my team andnone of them were engaging.
None of the audience wasengaging with me and I couldn't
figure out why.
You know, was it me?
I was starting to feel paranoidand on a break I said to the
leader what's going on?
Like, what the hell you broughtme in to teach innovation?
Nobody cares.
And he said well, you know,this is kind of performative.
Like they're not gonna have thepermission, they're not gonna
(08:30):
have the time to do the motion.
And uh, I said I was pissed,you know, I thought my time and
theirs and I brought them allback in.
I just kind of pulled this outof nowhere and I said all right,
everybody, let's sit down.
We're going to do somethinginnovative.
We're going to take the spaceto really blow things up.
I'm going to teach you how tokill the company.
And they were like what I said?
I said I want you to spend thenext hour and tell me all the
(08:51):
ways you're going to put yourcompany, your role, your job,
your business unit out ofbusiness.
Pretend you're your competitor,let's do it.
And the room just lit on fire.
It was amazing, because peoplehad permission to say the thing
that will not be said.
Now, how does that get tosimplicity?
What I realized was what theywanted.
What needed to be done to killtheir company was to get rid of
so many things that weren'tworking.
(09:12):
So teaching innovation didn'tmean a damn thing, because they
had so much that was in theirway, and that was the light bulb
moment for me.
I've got to give peoplepermission to finally get rid of
the unplanned and theunnecessary and the rules that
hold them back, because they'llbetter engage right and they'll
better have time to think.
So simplicity has to startbefore innovation ideas can
(09:34):
happen.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Lawrence and I, we talk about making sure that sort
of your house is stable, thatyour foundation is there, that
you can't begin.
A big part of our work involvesthe technology.
It's really people, process,technology.
That triangle of things needsto move together and in this
spell of you know, there's allof these super interesting and
(09:59):
innovative technology companiesthat you're like man for that
stream, for that domain, they'regoing to blow it out of the
water.
But then you get organizationsthat are like, well, let's get
this Cadillac, let's fix thehouse first, let's really know
what we're about.
Yeah, and a lot of people it'sget this Cadillac, let's fix the
house first, let's really knowwhat we're about.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, and a lot of people.
It's not that they don't, youknow, it's not like they're dumb
and they don't have goodintentions, it's the they don't
have time.
So often the phrase I use is wecreate the beast that we become
a slave to right and in orderto just move on and get
something done, we add anotherfeature on top of a process that
already sucks today and move onto the next thing because we
don't have time to really thinkabout how to do it.
So we often, you know, we getentrenched in these.
(10:36):
It's a vicious cycle basically.
So if we could give peoplepermission to think I mean, one
of the things I do at my companyis I mandate a half day and
people can pick what half daythey want each week that they
have deep work I need them toknow that I'm sending a signal
as a leader.
I expect you to think, I'mgiving you permission to carve
out the time and if you don'ttake it, that's on you.
(10:58):
So there's a lot of signalingthere that has to happen from
leaders, because thinking is adaring act.
We get uncomfortable beingunbusy.
We've got to give people theform and the way to do it, and
it starts with leaders modelingthe behavior, and I think that
would give people the space toreally think about things.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
When you initially brought that into your
organization, how did it feelfor people?
Initially?
We talked about the comfortlevel and feeling.
I imagine some folks sort of.
So how do we do this?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I think that people get uncomfortable with being
unbusy.
A lot of this is driven by fear.
That's the best thing I cantell you.
By fear, people have a lot offear around getting rid of
things versus adding thingsright.
You're bonused at work based ondoing more, not less.
You get a raise based on howmany people you manage, how many
things you do, how manyproducts and services you launch
(11:53):
.
It's more.
So, getting people comfortablewith less and then thinking is
really, first of all, it's acultural shift.
Right?
There's a few things I say.
We need to start getting awayfrom more and doing valuable.
That's a big one.
Another thing we need to moveaway from is being stop being
organized and be simplifiedright.
One of the things about youknow, marie Kondo the closet
(12:15):
organizer.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So one of the things that was so great about her is
that she didn't organize all thethings in your closet.
She organized the things thatmattered.
So her key was wasn't anorganizing, wasn't getting rid
of, it was elimination.
And teaching that to your teamscan be really, really powerful.
Rid of.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It was elimination, and teaching that to your teams
can be really, really powerful.
I can see where eliminatingtasks was sort of well, how are
we going to get to accomplishwhat's at the end of that road?
How do we accomplish what's atthe end of that?
But then I think therein liesnow you innovate on your process
.
You make things simpler thanthey need to be, things simpler
(12:57):
than they need to be, especiallynow with technology.
This, the ability to simplifyfrom learning a tool or from
learning sort of what reallydrives your value.
You know to your point.
Organizations are not payingfor us to build PowerPoint
slides from the manager levelall the way through.
Vps working on PowerPointslides that are ad hoc over and
(13:17):
over Just have to bang your headagainst the wall and say like,
don't you see that this ischoking your organization.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
You know, there's two things that we do that are
really powerful, that I wouldtell people listening that you
can do with your team or withyourself.
First of all is bake into everyproject plan or, ideally,
strategic plan that you do notjust all the things that you're
going to do, but have at leastone or two slides that are
commitments to what you're goingto stop doing, and what's
really cool about that is thatit really it bakes into the
(13:45):
process of I'm going to.
Here are the things that I'veidentified that are barriers
that are going to get in my way,and so I am committed to
immediately not doing thesethings anymore so I can make
space for this.
Most people don't think aboutthat.
Right, that's number one.
The second thing is you've gotto build this into your system.
Like, if you want people toreally be, you know, doing the
right things versus all thethings, invite them to kill
(14:06):
stupid rules, and so we, on aquarterly basis with my team I
have my team we meet in New YorkCity.
That's where our offices are weend our status meetings or
strategy meetings with killingstupid rules, and people look
forward to it Because it's theirtime all the stupid rules and
things that we do that aren'tworking, and I'm always
(14:26):
fascinated by it because usuallythey're my rules.
That's the thing about leadersyou put in place.
So that's a catharsis rightthere.
But also it is a immediatetherapy session for them,
because the amount of time andengagement I get back from those
people is stunning Stunning.
And they're not rules thatthey're telling me.
(14:47):
What happens is they tell metime sucks and frustrations and
processes and all that kind ofstuff that doesn't matter.
So, even if you're working in aregulated industry right, you
talked about pharma or banks orI don't know, national
intelligence I, you know, wework with all of those it's just
because you're regulated.
That's not, that's not anexcuse.
There's plenty of crap that youdo every day that has nothing
(15:11):
to do with regulation or rulesthat you can get rid of.
You've got to give people thepermission to do it.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So where and when does all that crap happen?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
in an organization.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
No, it's habits.
It's too easy to set up ameeting.
It's too easy to send an emailwithout thinking.
It's the immediacy and theironically.
There should be more frictionin your ability to set up a
meeting.
It's too easy to send an emailwithout thinking.
It's the immediacy and theironically.
There should be more frictionin your ability to set up a
meeting and send an email.
Because we don't think there'ssome ways people are getting
around this, like Microsoft,they say when people schedule a
(15:46):
meeting, the subject line andthe agenda they all have to be
in the form of questions andwhat that does is right forces
people to say this is thequestion we're going to be
addressing in the meeting.
Because if you're notaddressing a question or making
a decision, why are you meeting?
And it forces the personscheduling the meeting to really
think about do I need a meeting?
So that's one thing.
(16:07):
The other thing I'll tell you.
That was really interesting.
I was talking with the CPO, thechief people, the officer,
former CPO from Kickstarter andthey launched a four-day work
week and they said the thingthat really made it successful
was that they taught people thatstealing time is a crime and so
they teach people not topractice time crime.
(16:29):
So setting up a meeting is alast resort.
So if you set up a meeting, itbetter be good, because you are
stealing my time.
That changed everything becausepeople were really like, rather
than just setting something upon your calendar, I really had
to think about do I have theright to take up their time and
what am I going to accomplish?
So those little things likeshifts help people really change
(16:51):
their relationship with nottime management but really how
they spend their time.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Purpose.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's purpose.
It really is it's.
You know, time management is amisnomer.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right being organized isn't being simplified.
I can't spreadsheet my way outof it anymore because there's no
more time.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I think there's a there's a point to be made about
setting boundaries as well.
I think we spend and this iscorporate America that spends a
ridiculous amount of time inmeetings and emails, but
nobody's ever taught how to havea meeting or how to send an
email, but yet we spend the mosttime on it.
And it's like this weird ironicflip that why do we spend so
(17:31):
much time on this and nobodyreally questions it?
Once you join an organization,you look around and you go well,
that person's sending a meetingfor that, that person's sending
a meeting for that, and thenyou end up, you know, just
aligning with what that cultureis.
And you had a point about justmaking sure that there's some
sort of like safety level interms of leadership, allowing, I
think, their teams to be ableto do this.
(17:55):
And I'm interested in hearingyour perspective on, like, what
barriers to you or resistance tochange do you hear from leaders
that say, but Lisa, we need tohave these meetings, we need to
send these emails.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
We need to spend time on this right.
It's interesting Good leadersdon't say that.
Good leaders don't Like they're.
You know authentic leaders thatreally do want to get to the
work that matters, are willingto question work.
The ones that don't are theones that are driven by fear and
are risk averse.
I'm a fear.
If I get rid of this, somethingwill happen, and what you teach
(18:28):
them is you actually teach themto pilot getting rid of things
versus getting rid of themoutright.
Tell me about a time that wascomplex for you, like, do you
guys have a an example ofsomewhere where you really
remember a time suck for you?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Oh, I have my whole career.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, I mean even even starting, even starting a
company.
I mean there are some thingsthat I'm just like, yeah, this
should be super simple to do X acompany.
I mean there are some thingsthat I'm just like, yeah, this
should be super simple to do X.
And you go and you're like, whyam I spending 50 hours, like I
am paying this group, like thisis why I offloaded this.
I didn't realize that it wasgoing to be so much of me taking
care of this, or I mean the,the number of the amount of sort
(19:09):
of searching.
When you're actually starting acompany, there's very simple
things that you learn.
You know, here you can fill outthis form and you get an LLC
right away.
There are.
You know, what we learned as MBAstudents was really about how
to think when you're in thecompany but physically starting
it.
I didn't realize that we had tohave a bank full of money
(19:32):
already in order for healthinsurance to come out.
I didn't realize that we had tohave a bank full of money
already in order for healthinsurance to come out.
I didn't realize that thesecompanies don't give you health
insurance when you're a companyless than five, less than 10, et
cetera, understanding.
I didn't even realize thatcompanies had a son's number,
your social security number, foryour company.
We don't really talk about thatstuff.
That's.
Eventually, when you look at it,you go, ok, yeah, all this
(19:53):
stuff makes sense, but theamount of time suck on these
unknown required processes Ithink for me was big time suck
in the beginning.
So I do want to shift a littlebit more specifically, talking
about the biopharma, the biotech, the medical industry and life
sciences.
(20:14):
There's, you know, countlesstools that are designed to help
really process data and thingslike that, but there's just
there's so much more before youeven get to the technology of
changing just your looks on whatis really important, what is
really valuable, what is reallygoing to drive the organization,
(20:38):
the projects, out to scaling,to reaching clients.
There's so much involved inthere and it's just every
organization you go to.
You look at people's emailcalendar and you can't schedule
anything for three weeks.
How is it that there are somany important things over the
next three weeks, over thecourse of the whole year?
(21:01):
How is that possible?
You know, what do we do in anenvironment like this outside of
you know, deleting meetings.
I love people deleting meetingsand the first thing I ask is
what are you doing in place ofthat?
What do you, how do you getthat information for that
project out, if you want tocancel it or decrease it Cause
(21:23):
in some way?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
what do they do?
What are they replacing it with?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh, nothing, nothing.
That is what I see.
No meetings on Fridays, and inconcept, fine, that's good, but
let's be honest, there's goingto be tons of meetings happening
across the whole company.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
I think that meetings are a big issue, but I also
think the fact that people feelthat being busy is more
important than doing valuablework.
So, of course, gettingcomfortable with being unbusy, I
think, is going to be a reallyimportant thing for people, and
people don't know how to do thatanymore.
So I think meetings and emailsare always the biggest target,
by the way, but there's otherthings.
(22:02):
There's reports, there'sdecision making, so there's lots
of ways that we can help peopleget time back beyond just
meetings.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You know, as you talk about decision making coupled
with meetings, I see meetingswith the top of the organization
and you come in and you presentand you ask a couple of
questions.
The beginning and the meetingsjust sort of go in a different
direction.
Everybody had pre-reads,Everybody had a report,
(22:30):
Everybody had access to the sameinformation.
I don't understand why, but themeetings will go into a
different direction and then youget to the end.
Are we waiting for a decisionto happen?
I thought this was a decisionalbody.
We're supposed to have thisprocess, but no one's making a
decision to happen.
I thought this was a decisionalbody.
We're supposed to have thisprocess, but no one's making a
decision, because it seems likethe conversation isn't even
(22:53):
supported with what we providedand what we're showing.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Decision-making is a big problem.
I mean, there's a lot of thingsthat we do with people.
I think one of the best thingsyou can do as a leader is, even
if it's just a team leader cando as a leader is, even if it's
just a team leader is a processcalled you me, we and you me, we
if you've heard about this istake every person on your team.
I mean, the reason they don'tmake decisions is either it's
not clear what decisions theycan make or they have fear,
(23:17):
right, fear of missing out, fearof doing something wrong, fear
of being fired.
And so you me, we allows you tomeet with people and say these
are the decisions that you canmake, I can make, and that we
will make.
And it sets, rather than havingthis kind of fear and being
frozen, you're setting guardrails around risks, what risks
they can take and can't take,and often outlining what they
can't take is more importantthan what they can.
(23:38):
So that's an interesting way tokind of start helping
decision-making happen and getpeople comfortable with making
one, versus just never makingone at all.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That, yeah, that's a good point about these these
roles and responsibilitiesaround decision-making, which I
feel like a lot of times getsglossed over.
And, um, there's this idea that, oh, we have to all agree on
the one thing so that we canmove forward, and it's like if
we ever do that, nothing wouldget done right.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well, yeah, and they feel that decisions are just so
permanent, right, you can nevergo back.
And that's not true.
You can just pilot doingsomething, and if it, doesn't go
back and try something else.
So again, taking away the fearI think to your point you know,
lawrence, the fear I think toyour point, lawrence you've got
to be able to get peoplecomfortable with making a
decision, because otherwiseyou'll never move forward.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, in your experience, do you find that
leaders that are, let's say,responsible for a specific
initiative or process are theyalso the same person that is
deciding to stop something?
Because I've seen it go bothways, where you have somebody
start something, but you haveanother person stop it because
they have to be objective aboutokay, this is the situation we
(24:50):
agreed on, like A, b and C, andit looks like this is not going
the way that you had intended,and so, for whatever reason,
sometimes the person who ownsthe process is not, let's just
say, intellectually honest aboutwhat is going on, and so they
try to cover up things orwhatever it is, and so you need
somebody else, coming from youknow, not the person who is
who's decided to start thisthing, to be able to go.
(25:12):
Let's stop this, because weagreed that we were going to do
these things and clearly thisthing that we've planned out
hasn't played out the way thatwe want it to Right.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, there's ego.
That's the thing.
No-transcript online learningbusiness, and I've recently
(25:52):
retrenched it.
You know, I have a wholelearning hub, but, um, what's
better for me, rather thantrying to pitch my own things,
is partner with those thatalready do it, like partner up
with LinkedIn and all that stuff.
So, rather than trying to fightthe fight, I joined, you know,
my, my competition, and that wasa big pivot.
So, um, and not easy to do, butyou know, at some point you have
(26:12):
to kind of cut your loss anddecide.
You know, what am I going to do?
Keep chasing good money afterbad.
I think that's hard for leadersto do.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of ego in um in biotech and
biopharma, I'm sure oscar canspeak to that and just a lot of
people are very proud of of thework that they do, and they
should be right, I think.
But then there's also this Ican see humility and to say that
, okay, yeah, what I suggestedwas was probably not the best
way, and I don't know everythingright, so let's, what do we
(26:42):
want to do next?
Right, like you have to be opento that to be able to drive the
change that um os I have beendiscussing about.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
And it can be tricky too, because you have leaders
that they're great, they'reintelligent.
No one really teaches you to bea leader.
You know, you're here, you havesuch a level of intelligence in
this domain, we're going to getyou up here and keep moving you
up so that you can make higherlevel decisions.
That's great, but it doesn'treally position you how to be a
(27:09):
good leader, how to be a goodmanager, how to talk and listen,
how to pivot without you know,creating chaos.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I think that we don't teach leadership because we
don't teach human things, wedon't teach soft things.
People are afraid we're reallygood at teaching subject matter
expertise.
You know you guys are engineersand scientists by trade.
You have deep expertise but youdon't have broad expertise and
what makes a leader is broad.
You know to work across theorganization, to build a network
.
That's why they call thembuilding T-shaped people.
(27:38):
We always train for I-shapedpeople, but not T right.
This is where you get yourpower, skills of curiosity,
creative problem solving,agility, resilience, et cetera.
And we don't teach that, andpart of the problem is we don't.
It's not that we don't eventeach leaders.
We don't teach it in school.
We are really focused on notbuilding humans but building
employees, and we need to buildin the human piece because, at
(28:02):
the end of the day, people buypeople.
Meaning in sales, it's notabout the product, it's about
the person you're buying.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
There's very human aspects that get in the way of
work despite our best laidprocesses, and if we could learn
how to better deal with that, Ithink that we would be more
successful in lots of differentways.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
One of the things that we explored and started to
understand as we were startingour small but mighty
organization.
You have two options you canbootstrap it or you can go get
funding and in our industrythere's a lot of shareholders,
there's money that just pumpsinto this early stuff because
you're not making any money forsix, seven, eight, nine years,
(28:45):
10 years, unless you'relicensing something.
So that sort of go go gomentality for a decade.
It's exhausting and it is andit's sort of this constant.
You know, every day you go intowork and you can't even relax
because you feel like a beehive.
But we're human.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, this is where I get to.
You know, right now we are inan epidemic of burnout, and that
leads to disengagement.
Eight in 10 workers report alevel of mid to severe burnout,
lack of engagement eventeetering on.
23% say they're depressed, andso what that leads to is either
people quitting or complacency.
They just don't feel likefighting the fight anymore, you
(29:28):
know.
So we want to give people moremeaning at work and we want them
to not be burned out whiledoing it.
This go, go, go, go go can onlyhappen so long, but it's not
change fatigue, it's.
You know, people will workincredibly hard for things that
they think are meaningful, andthey're just constantly being
busy without understanding ifit's really going to be
(29:49):
meaningful.
They're not going to do it.
They're not.
So I understand the long runwayand I understand needing to
chase stuff, but that's wheresimplicity comes in, so people
don't get burned out and theyremain engaged, even for the
long haul.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
How do you, what are your thoughts on?
Sort of I've I've had my shareof experience in a couple of
different industry and a coupleof different organizations and
academia.
What I've seen early in thisindustry is you know, we're
going to do that walk to raisemoney, we're going to bring
(30:23):
patients here and, in essence,use the patient and you seeing
this person for you to workharder because, your work goes
into there Sometimes.
I don't think that that landsthe right way.
I think in some cases it's likewe are already burnt out and
tired and now you're puttingsomebody in our face to say what
(30:45):
about them?
It's like I haven't seen mykids in a week.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
That's interesting, yeah, whereas I think that's
where people are getting to.
Is that people are saying well,what about me?
You know what I mean.
I want to keep working hard.
I never lost sight of thepatient, but what I am losing
sight of the patient, but what Iam sight of is the work.
So the thing I preach is thatwe continually underestimate the
(31:10):
importance of getting workright and the impact of being
able to do great work.
So we are so focused on thevision and the vet and that's
great, but it's empty If thework I do every day is unplanned
, unnecessary.
It's um, it becomes demeaningfor people.
(31:31):
We, we have to get the workright, cause culture is the work
you do every day.
Yes, it's not these great.
You know having organic foodavailable to everybody and
bringing your dog to work, andyou know what I mean.
Like nice offices, no gifts ofshit, no one.
I mean they really don't.
That's why they don't want tocome back to the office, because
they don't care.
What they want is meaningfulwork.
(31:53):
They want to know that howtheir time is being spent is
going to be towards doingsomething good, like, and a
meeting doesn't do that.
So I really think that's wherewe underestimate as leaders,
even as entrepreneurs, right,like getting the word, am I
doing the right work?
And we have to have time tothink to understand that when
you're caught up on the hamsterwheel, you just do what's in
(32:13):
front of you.
You execute your calendar.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
And people go on vacation and they still work.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And I, they do, I do, and the reason I do is because
you have to keep.
You're trying to just keep up,and the reason I do is because
you have to keep.
You're trying to just keep up,and the idea isn't to keep up
with everything, it's to rethinkwhat are the things that I
should be doing instead?
And that's where you know, Ikeep talking about getting rid
of, you know, killing rules, etcetera, and making space for
deep work.
It's critical.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I love this idea that your culture is the work you do
every day.
It is what you're able to bring,what you're able to see and
feel like.
This is where I'm, this iswhere I am in this chain to make
that happen and this is how itaffects that.
Once in this huge initiative,regulations, all this stuff,
everybody has to stay here inthe company essentially for a
(33:00):
week, day in and day out,because we have to finish X, and
it was, it was, it was.
Oh, we want to get it therebefore they want us to get it
there.
We were creating the extremeurgency.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
The urgency around it .
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, and it was this .
It was interesting because theywere bringing in breakfast,
lunch and dinner essentially foranybody that was sticking
around for about uh, for abouttwo weeks, and the things that I
kept hearing from people waslike I don't understand this
shit, because I know how to feedmyself.
I don't need a company that istrying to feed.
(33:35):
Stop trying to feed me andlet's do something in this
company, like it's food is notgoing to make me want to work
here more.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And this is where I get back to burnout, which is
people aren't burned out fromdoing good work, they're burned
out from doing bad work, and weseem to mistake culture as perks
.
I've joked about the organicfood in the cafeteria.
But it's not a joke, right?
What happens right now is we'retrying to fix employee wellness
(34:04):
.
So it used to be like culture,getting people engaged.
Well, now it's giving themwellness perks to make them have
better mental health, and itdoesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's going to suck here, so we're going to give you
a discount to go get it fixed.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
This is what I'm talking about.
It doesn't matter.
I'm burned out, I don't want todiscount to yoga classes
because I'm never going to beable to go.
And the joke at Bloomberg wasthat, you know, they created
these meditation spaces forpeople and, first of all,
they're always like these creepyrooms that no one wants to go
into, like the recluse janitorcloset.
But the joke was no one couldever get in them because they
(34:41):
were filled with people takingconference calls because they
couldn't get in.
You know they were.
All the conference rooms werebooked.
So it doesn't work Like we'renot fixing the right problem.
You know I I don't want ameditation room or a nap room,
because you're going to judge mewhen I go and take a nap there
anyway and they're gross.
So I mean, let's fix work.
You know, don't give me a spacethat's going to keep me at work
(35:03):
longer.
Give me better work and don'twaste my time.
And people are pissed, they'repissed, they're burned out and
they're pissed, they're tired ofit.
So, focusing on getting thework right, we dramatically
think it's beneath us and it isthe core issue, the core issue
so right, that's so right.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I mean you got to get the work right.
You got to really know whywe're doing it.
We got to know why we're doingit.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And people are starting to wake up to do that.
And the issue is is that youknow, we've known forever that
workers will say that their youknow their time is being wasted
and things are too busy.
But that doesn't matter, itdoesn't matter, it doesn't
matter.
What matters is suddenly, now,when you survey the leaders,
they're saying their time isbeing wasted.
(35:51):
So suddenly, guess what?
It's an initiative to get rid ofthe complexity, to give, to
focus on wellness.
That's, that's what made thedifference.
So it is caring for people, butit's it affected the leaders,
and that's when things changed.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
So, it is caring for people, but it affected the
leaders and that's when thingschanged yeah, I guess with the
leaders.
And the point about, obviously,when you do these sorts of I
would say simplificationexercises, where you're trying
to figure out, like, what arethose, you know, what are the
mission critical activities thatyou're working on, and now you
have this new allocated amountof time, I think there needs to
be some time spent on how do youspend that time right?
And I think, like me and Oscar,we spend quite a bit of time
(36:29):
just consuming content from notonly our space but other
industries to figure out, likeare there better ways to do
something right?
And I think there's somethingto be said about, like learning
how to learn, or like learninghow to simplify your work, or
learning how to be curious, andthere just needs to be some
percentage of your timeallocated to just learning
something new just learningsomething new.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So giving people times and space for deep work, I
think is critical because itsends the signal that I expect
it and it is important, iscritical to getting things done.
So I mean, I know I'm throwingout a lot of different tools but
everyone thinks differently andeveryone feels permission
differently.
(37:10):
So, the idea is just to try oneof these things to start to show
the momentum to people and theresults to people that let's get
the work right, let's get ridof the time socks, let's kill
the zombie meetings, let's notlet stealing time be a crime,
and they'll stop, I want to sayspending their time and they'll
start investing it.
(37:30):
They'll get a new relationshipwith time.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
That's important.
The relationship we have withtime is wrong, and you get
really mad when people wasteyour money.
Why aren't you that pissed offwhen people waste your time?
You should be.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh, a thousand percent.
Yeah, non-renewable resource.
You'll never get it back, solet's spend time.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
This is it on so many levels.
I hope that we can have youback again and tackle some more
things that are really out thereand when we, when we say in our
podcast, lean by design, it'sbeing purposeful like really
think about what and why you'redoing these things and you'll
start to find avenues thatreally enhance the way that you
(38:11):
work.
Just taking a second and go outof it.
No one even said you had to doit.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
No one said you had to.
You just made assumptions.
So I'd love to talk more aboutit.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Have a whole thing about wanting to know how you
simplify at home.
I have two little kids, but Iwill have to leave that to
another conversation.
Yeah, it's.
Sometimes I'm looking around,I'm like I'm supposed to be the
efficiency expert in this houseis not efficient in any way, but
I can't.
There's no, there's no time.
(38:41):
But my time is not wasted.
To love my job, my role as a,as a father and as a husband, I
want to leave.
I want to end with with one onelast question work-life balance
or work-life fit?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It's not balance.
I think it's, uh yeah,work-life fit, if I'm
understanding your definition ofit.
I don't think there's ever abalance, but I think it's just
trying to have.
You can't just constantly havethe pendulum be on one side, so
I know when we're going througha launch man.
It's going to be heavy on thework, but then I've got to give
back that sometimes I thinkwhere people aren't comfortable
(39:16):
is when it's ironically heavy onthe life they're not used to it
and it's very easy to be busy.
And when people are unbusy theyare uncomfortable.
So we've got to get used toreestablishing.
You know, find your hobby,what's important?
If you had all the time in theworld, what would you spend your
time doing?
So spending time figuring outwhat those things are.
(39:37):
So when you do have the timefor yourself, you use it wisely,
like I'm sure.
As somebody who has two youngkids I don't even know if you
remember what it was like beforekids like your time is so
dramatically different now thatsuddenly, when you have it back,
you're going to be shocked.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yes, yes.
When we send our ourthree-year-old to Nana and
Papa's house for a night, mywife and I sit around and go
like what do we do now?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I guess there's dishes.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I guess there's laundry, but you fall into tasks
.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And so right.
And you say work-life balance.
I mean I guess you have youneed to define what that is.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
That's the first step .
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, I'm so glad we could Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Lisa, thank you so much, and I'm going to post in
the notes where they can findyour book, your bestselling
books, why simple wins kill thecompany.
Um, and where else can theyconnect with you and learn more
about future thing?
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Definitely link in with me on LinkedIn, lisa Bodell
.
Um go to future thinkcom andthere are a lot of things on
there about.
Uh, there's free resources andways that they can start to
think about.
Um simplification so they canget time back.
Right, the idea is get yourtime back so you can do the
things you want to do, reachyour potential, not just the
company's.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Value guys, all about value, lisa.
Thank you so much, lawrence,thanks for joining and we'll
catch you next time.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Thanks so much.
Welcome back to a new episode of Lean by Design
podcast.
I'm your host, oscar Gonzalez,with my co-host, lawrence Wong,
and we are so excited for theguests we have on today and,
quite frankly, I had to pinchmyself to say is this really
happening?
Let me introduce you to LisaBodell.
She is the CEO of FutureThink,a company focused on helping
(00:25):
organizations simplify andinnovate by eliminating
unnecessary processes andbarriers All about what we're
doing here.
She is a best-selling author oftwo books, and I love these
titles Kill the Company, and inno time those will be on this
shelf because I am going todevour that content.
And in no time those will be onthis shelf because I am going
(00:47):
to devour that content.
Her approach emphasizescreating cultures of simplicity
and efficiency, making herexpertise so relevant in a space
like biopharma and biotech.
Lisa, welcome to our virtualstudio and thank you so much for
joining us today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh, thanks Oscar and thanks Lawrence.
I'm glad to be here.
Really, I'm really glad to behere and we're going to have a
good time talking about someprovocative things.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I can't wait.
That's Lawrence.
I love really digging deep andgetting dirty.
I really want to know where didthis start?
Where did this idea ofsimplicity and understanding
that there was a void to evenhave these conversations, what?
Tell us a little bit about yourjourney?
How did you get into this?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, you know, I was new from a young age.
I wanted to be an entrepreneurand I wanted to help people
merge the creative with thebusiness.
I was always a very creativeperson in a business environment
.
Right, I was.
I went into advertising and Iwas the business person in
advertising.
But I also realized I wasreally creative too and I wanted
to teach people how to do that,build more of that innovation
(01:51):
into their business.
And when I started to do it,people were really excited
because innovation was trendy.
Right, this was like this earlyZeds and everyone wanted to
brainstorm and have ideas.
But it never went anywhere.
And I was very frustratedbecause it was like a
performance bringing someonefrom the outside in teaching
people to be creative.
Right, we're going to have abrainstorm and then nothing goes
anywhere.
And the reason wasn't becausepeople weren't creative, and the
(02:15):
reason wasn't because peopledidn't know how.
It's that they didn't have thetime.
And I realized that the start ofinnovation is in ideas.
Everyone's got ideas.
It's that they don't have timeand that's where simplification
was born.
So it didn't matter howcreative you were if you didn't
have time to get to it.
So I really knew that the frontend of innovation was giving
people the space and time, andso that's where I really pivoted
(02:39):
my business from being aboutinnovation to being about
simplicity.
Because if you don't start byweeding the garden, business
from being about innovation tobeing about simplicity, because
if you don't start by weedingthe garden, you know rules and
complexity and unnecessary work.
It's like a weed it keepsgrowing back, and so we've got
to build systems in to allowpeople to know that it's okay to
get rid of things that areoutdated and not keep going with
the status quo.
So right, you as a scientistand you as an engineer, you have
(03:02):
processes in place, there'srules to be followed, but there
are so many unnecessary ones,and we've got to give people the
methods to get rid of stuffthat doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I feel that to such a degree and I think what you're
hitting is such an importantpart about creating the
opportunity for your brain to dothis work.
We're not being paid to becreative when we're at home,
when we're sleeping, and thenwe're just slaving over a
computer or whatever throughoutthe entire day.
(03:35):
I mean just the sheer amount ofthings that are happening
throughout a day really chokesany time that you have to stop
and say let me take a look atwhat's actually happening here.
Why are these things happening?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And that's the issue is like I'll ask people on stage
you know, what do you spendyour day doing?
And 100% of the time, the toptwo things are meetings and
emails.
People are I don't know anyonethat was drowned or that was
hired for their email andmeeting abilities, but they're,
as a scientist and engineer, youknow you're not hired for, you
(04:11):
know, running an amazing meeting, so we can't get to the work we
want to do.
And when you ask people here'sthe bigger thing when you ask
people, what do you wish youcould spend your time doing?
They've got a lot of ideas.
You know like it's.
It's like meeting withcustomers or coming up with new,
innovative I don't know newcompounds.
Whatever it is.
Most things they want to do aremore external and aspirational.
(04:32):
Where they spend their time isreally the mundane, the
unnecessary.
They've got to free people upfrom that slave of the busy.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Busy is not productivity.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It's not, because what they need is time to think.
I mean again, like if I askpeople when I'm on stage talking
, how many of you wish you hadmore time to think.
Every hand goes up.
Thinking is a daring act incompanies, because being busy
gives people more sense ofcomfort, a sense of value right,
(05:09):
the cult of business.
And being unbusy becausethinking has just become too
daring of an act right, it'slike it's intangible.
I can't just sit around andthink I'm going to get fired.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
You know it's interesting because there's so
much of what Lawrence and I aredoing here that I still feel
guilty, myself running a company, that I'm sitting outside and
just sort of combing throughOkay, where can we go, where can
we take this processing All ofthe?
You know you have all thesemeetings.
You need in some, in some space, to just stop and say what do
(05:45):
all the things that we justtalked about actually mean?
What do we really care about?
And I still have trouble withthat where, you know, even
giving ourselves this luxury ofvacationing whenever you guys
want and you can ask Lawrence, Iprobably don't take as much
time as I should to really allowyour brain to think, and it's
(06:07):
just I don't know if it was theindustry that is sort of
ingrained that in me and now I'mtrying to pull out of that.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It's cultural.
I think it's bigger than justindustry, because everybody says
across industries they wishthey had more time to think,
because everybody says acrossindustries they wish they had
more time to think.
But, what's interesting,there's a paradox that happens
because people want more time tothink, because that's where you
process, that's where youreally hear what's inside right
Kind of head, heart, gut, ofwhat's bothering you, what's the
real solution you need to do,what's the hard thing that
(06:38):
really needs to be done.
But until it's quiet you don'treally understand it.
So we don't make the time to doit because we think that it's
not valuable, we'll be seen,it'll be wrong.
The other paradox is that whenwe actually do have the time to
be unbusy, we are incrediblyuncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
It's like being quiet .
Speaker 2 (07:01):
People don't know how to do it and so you're on the
right track.
That's what I always say toleaders.
If you start to feeluncomfortable because you are
unbusy, you're doing it right,because you're reteaching
yourself how to think and, yeah,that's a catharsis that you
need to go through, and Istruggle with it too, and I run
a thinking company, you know.
But so there's lots of ways todo that, to help people do it.
(07:24):
But that's the first step,which is realizing hey, when you
do get that time to think, whenyou finally give yourself
permission, it's gonna, it'sgonna feel weird.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
When, when was that point that in your company to
move from innovation to sort ofsimplicity at its finest?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Well, the it happened actually.
I talked about this in my bookand actually killed the company,
and it became the definingmoment for me for writing the
second book.
I went down, I was doing a verylarge project with a group of
GE and it was in Raleigh, durham, north Carolina, and there were
50 leaders and they wanted usto come in and help them think
about the future and beinnovative.
And I was doing all this trendresearch and fun presentations
(08:05):
and et cetera with my team andnone of them were engaging.
None of the audience wasengaging with me and I couldn't
figure out why.
You know, was it me?
I was starting to feel paranoidand on a break I said to the
leader what's going on?
Like, what the hell you broughtme in to teach innovation?
Nobody cares.
And he said well, you know,this is kind of performative.
Like they're not gonna have thepermission, they're not gonna
(08:30):
have the time to do the motion.
And uh, I said I was pissed,you know, I thought my time and
theirs and I brought them allback in.
I just kind of pulled this outof nowhere and I said all right,
everybody, let's sit down.
We're going to do somethinginnovative.
We're going to take the spaceto really blow things up.
I'm going to teach you how tokill the company.
And they were like what I said?
I said I want you to spend thenext hour and tell me all the
(08:51):
ways you're going to put yourcompany, your role, your job,
your business unit out ofbusiness.
Pretend you're your competitor,let's do it.
And the room just lit on fire.
It was amazing, because peoplehad permission to say the thing
that will not be said.
Now, how does that get tosimplicity?
What I realized was what theywanted.
What needed to be done to killtheir company was to get rid of
so many things that weren'tworking.
(09:12):
So teaching innovation didn'tmean a damn thing, because they
had so much that was in theirway, and that was the light bulb
moment for me.
I've got to give peoplepermission to finally get rid of
the unplanned and theunnecessary and the rules that
hold them back, because they'llbetter engage right and they'll
better have time to think.
So simplicity has to startbefore innovation ideas can
(09:34):
happen.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Lawrence and I, we talk about making sure that sort
of your house is stable, thatyour foundation is there, that
you can't begin.
A big part of our work involvesthe technology.
It's really people, process,technology.
That triangle of things needsto move together and in this
spell of you know, there's allof these super interesting and
(09:59):
innovative technology companiesthat you're like man for that
stream, for that domain, they'regoing to blow it out of the
water.
But then you get organizationsthat are like, well, let's get
this Cadillac, let's fix thehouse first, let's really know
what we're about.
Yeah, and a lot of people it'sget this Cadillac, let's fix the
house first, let's really knowwhat we're about.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, and a lot of people.
It's not that they don't, youknow, it's not like they're dumb
and they don't have goodintentions, it's the they don't
have time.
So often the phrase I use is wecreate the beast that we become
a slave to right and in orderto just move on and get
something done, we add anotherfeature on top of a process that
already sucks today and move onto the next thing because we
don't have time to really thinkabout how to do it.
So we often, you know, we getentrenched in these.
(10:36):
It's a vicious cycle basically.
So if we could give peoplepermission to think I mean, one
of the things I do at my companyis I mandate a half day and
people can pick what half daythey want each week that they
have deep work I need them toknow that I'm sending a signal
as a leader.
I expect you to think, I'mgiving you permission to carve
out the time and if you don'ttake it, that's on you.
(10:58):
So there's a lot of signalingthere that has to happen from
leaders, because thinking is adaring act.
We get uncomfortable beingunbusy.
We've got to give people theform and the way to do it, and
it starts with leaders modelingthe behavior, and I think that
would give people the space toreally think about things.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
When you initially brought that into your
organization, how did it feelfor people?
Initially?
We talked about the comfortlevel and feeling.
I imagine some folks sort of.
So how do we do this?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I think that people get uncomfortable with being
unbusy.
A lot of this is driven by fear.
That's the best thing I cantell you.
By fear, people have a lot offear around getting rid of
things versus adding thingsright.
You're bonused at work based ondoing more, not less.
You get a raise based on howmany people you manage, how many
things you do, how manyproducts and services you launch
(11:53):
.
It's more.
So, getting people comfortablewith less and then thinking is
really, first of all, it's acultural shift.
Right?
There's a few things I say.
We need to start getting awayfrom more and doing valuable.
That's a big one.
Another thing we need to moveaway from is being stop being
organized and be simplifiedright.
One of the things about youknow, marie Kondo the closet
(12:15):
organizer.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So one of the things that was so great about her is
that she didn't organize all thethings in your closet.
She organized the things thatmattered.
So her key was wasn't anorganizing, wasn't getting rid
of, it was elimination.
And teaching that to your teamscan be really, really powerful.
Rid of.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It was elimination, and teaching that to your teams
can be really, really powerful.
I can see where eliminatingtasks was sort of well, how are
we going to get to accomplishwhat's at the end of that road?
How do we accomplish what's atthe end of that?
But then I think therein liesnow you innovate on your process
.
You make things simpler thanthey need to be, things simpler
(12:57):
than they need to be, especiallynow with technology.
This, the ability to simplifyfrom learning a tool or from
learning sort of what reallydrives your value.
You know to your point.
Organizations are not payingfor us to build PowerPoint
slides from the manager levelall the way through.
Vps working on PowerPointslides that are ad hoc over and
(13:17):
over Just have to bang your headagainst the wall and say like,
don't you see that this ischoking your organization.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
You know, there's two things that we do that are
really powerful, that I wouldtell people listening that you
can do with your team or withyourself.
First of all is bake into everyproject plan or, ideally,
strategic plan that you do notjust all the things that you're
going to do, but have at leastone or two slides that are
commitments to what you're goingto stop doing, and what's
really cool about that is thatit really it bakes into the
(13:45):
process of I'm going to.
Here are the things that I'veidentified that are barriers
that are going to get in my way,and so I am committed to
immediately not doing thesethings anymore so I can make
space for this.
Most people don't think aboutthat.
Right, that's number one.
The second thing is you've gotto build this into your system.
Like, if you want people toreally be, you know, doing the
right things versus all thethings, invite them to kill
(14:06):
stupid rules, and so we, on aquarterly basis with my team I
have my team we meet in New YorkCity.
That's where our offices are weend our status meetings or
strategy meetings with killingstupid rules, and people look
forward to it Because it's theirtime all the stupid rules and
things that we do that aren'tworking, and I'm always
(14:26):
fascinated by it because usuallythey're my rules.
That's the thing about leadersyou put in place.
So that's a catharsis rightthere.
But also it is a immediatetherapy session for them,
because the amount of time andengagement I get back from those
people is stunning Stunning.
And they're not rules thatthey're telling me.
(14:47):
What happens is they tell metime sucks and frustrations and
processes and all that kind ofstuff that doesn't matter.
So, even if you're working in aregulated industry right, you
talked about pharma or banks orI don't know, national
intelligence I, you know, wework with all of those it's just
because you're regulated.
That's not, that's not anexcuse.
There's plenty of crap that youdo every day that has nothing
(15:11):
to do with regulation or rulesthat you can get rid of.
You've got to give people thepermission to do it.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So where and when does all that crap happen?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
in an organization.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
No, it's habits.
It's too easy to set up ameeting.
It's too easy to send an emailwithout thinking.
It's the immediacy and theironically.
There should be more frictionin your ability to set up a
meeting.
It's too easy to send an emailwithout thinking.
It's the immediacy and theironically.
There should be more frictionin your ability to set up a
meeting and send an email.
Because we don't think there'ssome ways people are getting
around this, like Microsoft,they say when people schedule a
(15:46):
meeting, the subject line andthe agenda they all have to be
in the form of questions andwhat that does is right forces
people to say this is thequestion we're going to be
addressing in the meeting.
Because if you're notaddressing a question or making
a decision, why are you meeting?
And it forces the personscheduling the meeting to really
think about do I need a meeting?
So that's one thing.
(16:07):
The other thing I'll tell you.
That was really interesting.
I was talking with the CPO, thechief people, the officer,
former CPO from Kickstarter andthey launched a four-day work
week and they said the thingthat really made it successful
was that they taught people thatstealing time is a crime and so
they teach people not topractice time crime.
(16:29):
So setting up a meeting is alast resort.
So if you set up a meeting, itbetter be good, because you are
stealing my time.
That changed everything becausepeople were really like, rather
than just setting something upon your calendar, I really had
to think about do I have theright to take up their time and
what am I going to accomplish?
So those little things likeshifts help people really change
(16:51):
their relationship with nottime management but really how
they spend their time.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Purpose.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
It's purpose.
It really is it's.
You know, time management is amisnomer.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right being organized isn't being simplified.
I can't spreadsheet my way outof it anymore because there's no
more time.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I think there's a there's a point to be made about
setting boundaries as well.
I think we spend and this iscorporate America that spends a
ridiculous amount of time inmeetings and emails, but
nobody's ever taught how to havea meeting or how to send an
email, but yet we spend the mosttime on it.
And it's like this weird ironicflip that why do we spend so
(17:31):
much time on this and nobodyreally questions it?
Once you join an organization,you look around and you go well,
that person's sending a meetingfor that, that person's sending
a meeting for that, and thenyou end up, you know, just
aligning with what that cultureis.
And you had a point about justmaking sure that there's some
sort of like safety level interms of leadership, allowing, I
think, their teams to be ableto do this.
(17:55):
And I'm interested in hearingyour perspective on, like, what
barriers to you or resistance tochange do you hear from leaders
that say, but Lisa, we need tohave these meetings, we need to
send these emails.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
We need to spend time on this right.
It's interesting Good leadersdon't say that.
Good leaders don't Like they're.
You know authentic leaders thatreally do want to get to the
work that matters, are willingto question work.
The ones that don't are theones that are driven by fear and
are risk averse.
I'm a fear.
If I get rid of this, somethingwill happen, and what you teach
(18:28):
them is you actually teach themto pilot getting rid of things
versus getting rid of themoutright.
Tell me about a time that wascomplex for you, like, do you
guys have a an example ofsomewhere where you really
remember a time suck for you?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Oh, I have my whole career.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, I mean even even starting, even starting a
company.
I mean there are some thingsthat I'm just like, yeah, this
should be super simple to do X acompany.
I mean there are some thingsthat I'm just like, yeah, this
should be super simple to do X.
And you go and you're like, whyam I spending 50 hours, like I
am paying this group, like thisis why I offloaded this.
I didn't realize that it wasgoing to be so much of me taking
care of this, or I mean the,the number of the amount of sort
(19:09):
of searching.
When you're actually starting acompany, there's very simple
things that you learn.
You know, here you can fill outthis form and you get an LLC
right away.
There are.
You know, what we learned as MBAstudents was really about how
to think when you're in thecompany but physically starting
it.
I didn't realize that we had tohave a bank full of money
(19:32):
already in order for healthinsurance to come out.
I didn't realize that we had tohave a bank full of money
already in order for healthinsurance to come out.
I didn't realize that thesecompanies don't give you health
insurance when you're a companyless than five, less than 10, et
cetera, understanding.
I didn't even realize thatcompanies had a son's number,
your social security number, foryour company.
We don't really talk about thatstuff.
That's.
Eventually, when you look at it,you go, ok, yeah, all this
(19:53):
stuff makes sense, but theamount of time suck on these
unknown required processes Ithink for me was big time suck
in the beginning.
So I do want to shift a littlebit more specifically, talking
about the biopharma, the biotech, the medical industry and life
sciences.
(20:14):
There's, you know, countlesstools that are designed to help
really process data and thingslike that, but there's just
there's so much more before youeven get to the technology of
changing just your looks on whatis really important, what is
really valuable, what is reallygoing to drive the organization,
(20:38):
the projects, out to scaling,to reaching clients.
There's so much involved inthere and it's just every
organization you go to.
You look at people's emailcalendar and you can't schedule
anything for three weeks.
How is it that there are somany important things over the
next three weeks, over thecourse of the whole year?
(21:01):
How is that possible?
You know, what do we do in anenvironment like this outside of
you know, deleting meetings.
I love people deleting meetingsand the first thing I ask is
what are you doing in place ofthat?
What do you, how do you getthat information for that
project out, if you want tocancel it or decrease it Cause
(21:23):
in some way?
Speaker 2 (21:24):
what do they do?
What are they replacing it with?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Oh, nothing, nothing.
That is what I see.
No meetings on Fridays, and inconcept, fine, that's good, but
let's be honest, there's goingto be tons of meetings happening
across the whole company.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
I think that meetings are a big issue, but I also
think the fact that people feelthat being busy is more
important than doing valuablework.
So, of course, gettingcomfortable with being unbusy, I
think, is going to be a reallyimportant thing for people, and
people don't know how to do thatanymore.
So I think meetings and emailsare always the biggest target,
by the way, but there's otherthings.
(22:02):
There's reports, there'sdecision making, so there's lots
of ways that we can help peopleget time back beyond just
meetings.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You know, as you talk about decision making coupled
with meetings, I see meetingswith the top of the organization
and you come in and you presentand you ask a couple of
questions.
The beginning and the meetingsjust sort of go in a different
direction.
Everybody had pre-reads,Everybody had a report,
(22:30):
Everybody had access to the sameinformation.
I don't understand why, but themeetings will go into a
different direction and then youget to the end.
Are we waiting for a decisionto happen?
I thought this was a decisionalbody.
We're supposed to have thisprocess, but no one's making a
decision to happen.
I thought this was a decisionalbody.
We're supposed to have thisprocess, but no one's making a
decision, because it seems likethe conversation isn't even
(22:53):
supported with what we providedand what we're showing.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Decision-making is a big problem.
I mean, there's a lot of thingsthat we do with people.
I think one of the best thingsyou can do as a leader is, even
if it's just a team leader cando as a leader is, even if it's
just a team leader is a processcalled you me, we and you me, we
if you've heard about this istake every person on your team.
I mean, the reason they don'tmake decisions is either it's
not clear what decisions theycan make or they have fear,
(23:17):
right, fear of missing out, fearof doing something wrong, fear
of being fired.
And so you me, we allows you tomeet with people and say these
are the decisions that you canmake, I can make, and that we
will make.
And it sets, rather than havingthis kind of fear and being
frozen, you're setting guardrails around risks, what risks
they can take and can't take,and often outlining what they
can't take is more importantthan what they can.
(23:38):
So that's an interesting way tokind of start helping
decision-making happen and getpeople comfortable with making
one, versus just never makingone at all.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That, yeah, that's a good point about these these
roles and responsibilitiesaround decision-making, which I
feel like a lot of times getsglossed over.
And, um, there's this idea that, oh, we have to all agree on
the one thing so that we canmove forward, and it's like if
we ever do that, nothing wouldget done right.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well, yeah, and they feel that decisions are just so
permanent, right, you can nevergo back.
And that's not true.
You can just pilot doingsomething, and if it, doesn't go
back and try something else.
So again, taking away the fearI think to your point you know,
lawrence, the fear I think toyour point, lawrence you've got
to be able to get peoplecomfortable with making a
decision, because otherwiseyou'll never move forward.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, in your experience, do you find that
leaders that are, let's say,responsible for a specific
initiative or process are theyalso the same person that is
deciding to stop something?
Because I've seen it go bothways, where you have somebody
start something, but you haveanother person stop it because
they have to be objective aboutokay, this is the situation we
(24:50):
agreed on, like A, b and C, andit looks like this is not going
the way that you had intended,and so, for whatever reason,
sometimes the person who ownsthe process is not, let's just
say, intellectually honest aboutwhat is going on, and so they
try to cover up things orwhatever it is, and so you need
somebody else, coming from youknow, not the person who is
who's decided to start thisthing, to be able to go.
(25:12):
Let's stop this, because weagreed that we were going to do
these things and clearly thisthing that we've planned out
hasn't played out the way thatwe want it to Right.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, there's ego.
That's the thing.
No-transcript online learningbusiness, and I've recently
(25:52):
retrenched it.
You know, I have a wholelearning hub, but, um, what's
better for me, rather thantrying to pitch my own things,
is partner with those thatalready do it, like partner up
with LinkedIn and all that stuff.
So, rather than trying to fightthe fight, I joined, you know,
my, my competition, and that wasa big pivot.
So, um, and not easy to do, butyou know, at some point you have
(26:12):
to kind of cut your loss anddecide.
You know, what am I going to do?
Keep chasing good money afterbad.
I think that's hard for leadersto do.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of ego in um in biotech and
biopharma, I'm sure oscar canspeak to that and just a lot of
people are very proud of of thework that they do, and they
should be right, I think.
But then there's also this Ican see humility and to say that
, okay, yeah, what I suggestedwas was probably not the best
way, and I don't know everythingright, so let's, what do we
(26:42):
want to do next?
Right, like you have to be opento that to be able to drive the
change that um os I have beendiscussing about.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
And it can be tricky too, because you have leaders
that they're great, they'reintelligent.
No one really teaches you to bea leader.
You know, you're here, you havesuch a level of intelligence in
this domain, we're going to getyou up here and keep moving you
up so that you can make higherlevel decisions.
That's great, but it doesn'treally position you how to be a
(27:09):
good leader, how to be a goodmanager, how to talk and listen,
how to pivot without you know,creating chaos.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
I think that we don't teach leadership because we
don't teach human things, wedon't teach soft things.
People are afraid we're reallygood at teaching subject matter
expertise.
You know you guys are engineersand scientists by trade.
You have deep expertise but youdon't have broad expertise and
what makes a leader is broad.
You know to work across theorganization, to build a network
.
That's why they call thembuilding T-shaped people.
(27:38):
We always train for I-shapedpeople, but not T right.
This is where you get yourpower, skills of curiosity,
creative problem solving,agility, resilience, et cetera.
And we don't teach that, andpart of the problem is we don't.
It's not that we don't eventeach leaders.
We don't teach it in school.
We are really focused on notbuilding humans but building
employees, and we need to buildin the human piece because, at
(28:02):
the end of the day, people buypeople.
Meaning in sales, it's notabout the product, it's about
the person you're buying.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
There's very human aspects that get in the way of
work despite our best laidprocesses, and if we could learn
how to better deal with that, Ithink that we would be more
successful in lots of differentways.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
One of the things that we explored and started to
understand as we were startingour small but mighty
organization.
You have two options you canbootstrap it or you can go get
funding and in our industrythere's a lot of shareholders,
there's money that just pumpsinto this early stuff because
you're not making any money forsix, seven, eight, nine years,
(28:45):
10 years, unless you'relicensing something.
So that sort of go go gomentality for a decade.
It's exhausting and it is andit's sort of this constant.
You know, every day you go intowork and you can't even relax
because you feel like a beehive.
But we're human.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, this is where I get to.
You know, right now we are inan epidemic of burnout, and that
leads to disengagement.
Eight in 10 workers report alevel of mid to severe burnout,
lack of engagement eventeetering on.
23% say they're depressed, andso what that leads to is either
people quitting or complacency.
They just don't feel likefighting the fight anymore, you
(29:28):
know.
So we want to give people moremeaning at work and we want them
to not be burned out whiledoing it.
This go, go, go, go go can onlyhappen so long, but it's not
change fatigue, it's.
You know, people will workincredibly hard for things that
they think are meaningful, andthey're just constantly being
busy without understanding ifit's really going to be
(29:49):
meaningful.
They're not going to do it.
They're not.
So I understand the long runwayand I understand needing to
chase stuff, but that's wheresimplicity comes in, so people
don't get burned out and theyremain engaged, even for the
long haul.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
How do you, what are your thoughts on?
Sort of I've I've had my shareof experience in a couple of
different industry and a coupleof different organizations and
academia.
What I've seen early in thisindustry is you know, we're
going to do that walk to raisemoney, we're going to bring
(30:23):
patients here and, in essence,use the patient and you seeing
this person for you to workharder because, your work goes
into there Sometimes.
I don't think that that landsthe right way.
I think in some cases it's likewe are already burnt out and
tired and now you're puttingsomebody in our face to say what
(30:45):
about them?
It's like I haven't seen mykids in a week.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
That's interesting, yeah, whereas I think that's
where people are getting to.
Is that people are saying well,what about me?
You know what I mean.
I want to keep working hard.
I never lost sight of thepatient, but what I am losing
sight of the patient, but what Iam sight of is the work.
So the thing I preach is thatwe continually underestimate the
(31:10):
importance of getting workright and the impact of being
able to do great work.
So we are so focused on thevision and the vet and that's
great, but it's empty If thework I do every day is unplanned
, unnecessary.
It's um, it becomes demeaningfor people.
(31:31):
We, we have to get the workright, cause culture is the work
you do every day.
Yes, it's not these great.
You know having organic foodavailable to everybody and
bringing your dog to work, andyou know what I mean.
Like nice offices, no gifts ofshit, no one.
I mean they really don't.
That's why they don't want tocome back to the office, because
they don't care.
What they want is meaningfulwork.
(31:53):
They want to know that howtheir time is being spent is
going to be towards doingsomething good, like, and a
meeting doesn't do that.
So I really think that's wherewe underestimate as leaders,
even as entrepreneurs, right,like getting the word, am I
doing the right work?
And we have to have time tothink to understand that when
you're caught up on the hamsterwheel, you just do what's in
(32:13):
front of you.
You execute your calendar.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
And people go on vacation and they still work.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And I, they do, I do, and the reason I do is because
you have to keep.
You're trying to just keep up,and the reason I do is because
you have to keep.
You're trying to just keep up,and the idea isn't to keep up
with everything, it's to rethinkwhat are the things that I
should be doing instead?
And that's where you know, Ikeep talking about getting rid
of, you know, killing rules, etcetera, and making space for
deep work.
It's critical.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I love this idea that your culture is the work you do
every day.
It is what you're able to bring,what you're able to see and
feel like.
This is where I'm, this iswhere I am in this chain to make
that happen and this is how itaffects that.
Once in this huge initiative,regulations, all this stuff,
everybody has to stay here inthe company essentially for a
(33:00):
week, day in and day out,because we have to finish X, and
it was, it was, it was.
Oh, we want to get it therebefore they want us to get it
there.
We were creating the extremeurgency.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
The urgency around it .
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, and it was this .
It was interesting because theywere bringing in breakfast,
lunch and dinner essentially foranybody that was sticking
around for about uh, for abouttwo weeks, and the things that I
kept hearing from people waslike I don't understand this
shit, because I know how to feedmyself.
I don't need a company that istrying to feed.
(33:35):
Stop trying to feed me andlet's do something in this
company, like it's food is notgoing to make me want to work
here more.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And this is where I get back to burnout, which is
people aren't burned out fromdoing good work, they're burned
out from doing bad work, and weseem to mistake culture as perks
.
I've joked about the organicfood in the cafeteria.
But it's not a joke, right?
What happens right now is we'retrying to fix employee wellness
(34:04):
.
So it used to be like culture,getting people engaged.
Well, now it's giving themwellness perks to make them have
better mental health, and itdoesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
It's going to suck here, so we're going to give you
a discount to go get it fixed.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
This is what I'm talking about.
It doesn't matter.
I'm burned out, I don't want todiscount to yoga classes
because I'm never going to beable to go.
And the joke at Bloomberg wasthat, you know, they created
these meditation spaces forpeople and, first of all,
they're always like these creepyrooms that no one wants to go
into, like the recluse janitorcloset.
But the joke was no one couldever get in them because they
(34:41):
were filled with people takingconference calls because they
couldn't get in.
You know they were.
All the conference rooms werebooked.
So it doesn't work Like we'renot fixing the right problem.
You know I I don't want ameditation room or a nap room,
because you're going to judge mewhen I go and take a nap there
anyway and they're gross.
So I mean, let's fix work.
You know, don't give me a spacethat's going to keep me at work
(35:03):
longer.
Give me better work and don'twaste my time.
And people are pissed, they'repissed, they're burned out and
they're pissed, they're tired ofit.
So, focusing on getting thework right, we dramatically
think it's beneath us and it isthe core issue, the core issue
so right, that's so right.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I mean you got to get the work right.
You got to really know whywe're doing it.
We got to know why we're doingit.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And people are starting to wake up to do that.
And the issue is is that youknow, we've known forever that
workers will say that their youknow their time is being wasted
and things are too busy.
But that doesn't matter, itdoesn't matter, it doesn't
matter.
What matters is suddenly, now,when you survey the leaders,
they're saying their time isbeing wasted.
(35:51):
So suddenly, guess what?
It's an initiative to get rid ofthe complexity, to give, to
focus on wellness.
That's, that's what made thedifference.
So it is caring for people, butit's it affected the leaders,
and that's when things changed.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
So, it is caring for people, but it affected the
leaders and that's when thingschanged yeah, I guess with the
leaders.
And the point about, obviously,when you do these sorts of I
would say simplificationexercises, where you're trying
to figure out, like, what arethose, you know, what are the
mission critical activities thatyou're working on, and now you
have this new allocated amountof time, I think there needs to
be some time spent on how do youspend that time right?
And I think, like me and Oscar,we spend quite a bit of time
(36:29):
just consuming content from notonly our space but other
industries to figure out, likeare there better ways to do
something right?
And I think there's somethingto be said about, like learning
how to learn, or like learninghow to simplify your work, or
learning how to be curious, andthere just needs to be some
percentage of your timeallocated to just learning
something new just learningsomething new.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So giving people times and space for deep work, I
think is critical because itsends the signal that I expect
it and it is important, iscritical to getting things done.
So I mean, I know I'm throwingout a lot of different tools but
everyone thinks differently andeveryone feels permission
differently.
(37:10):
So, the idea is just to try oneof these things to start to show
the momentum to people and theresults to people that let's get
the work right, let's get ridof the time socks, let's kill
the zombie meetings, let's notlet stealing time be a crime,
and they'll stop, I want to sayspending their time and they'll
start investing it.
(37:30):
They'll get a new relationshipwith time.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
That's important.
The relationship we have withtime is wrong, and you get
really mad when people wasteyour money.
Why aren't you that pissed offwhen people waste your time?
You should be.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh, a thousand percent.
Yeah, non-renewable resource.
You'll never get it back, solet's spend time.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
This is it on so many levels.
I hope that we can have youback again and tackle some more
things that are really out thereand when we, when we say in our
podcast, lean by design, it'sbeing purposeful like really
think about what and why you'redoing these things and you'll
start to find avenues thatreally enhance the way that you
(38:11):
work.
Just taking a second and go outof it.
No one even said you had to doit.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
No one said you had to.
You just made assumptions.
So I'd love to talk more aboutit.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Have a whole thing about wanting to know how you
simplify at home.
I have two little kids, but Iwill have to leave that to
another conversation.
Yeah, it's.
Sometimes I'm looking around,I'm like I'm supposed to be the
efficiency expert in this houseis not efficient in any way, but
I can't.
There's no, there's no time.
(38:41):
But my time is not wasted.
To love my job, my role as a,as a father and as a husband, I
want to leave.
I want to end with with one onelast question work-life balance
or work-life fit?
Speaker 2 (38:55):
It's not balance.
I think it's, uh yeah,work-life fit, if I'm
understanding your definition ofit.
I don't think there's ever abalance, but I think it's just
trying to have.
You can't just constantly havethe pendulum be on one side, so
I know when we're going througha launch man.
It's going to be heavy on thework, but then I've got to give
back that sometimes I thinkwhere people aren't comfortable
(39:16):
is when it's ironically heavy onthe life they're not used to it
and it's very easy to be busy.
And when people are unbusy theyare uncomfortable.
So we've got to get used toreestablishing.
You know, find your hobby,what's important?
If you had all the time in theworld, what would you spend your
time doing?
So spending time figuring outwhat those things are.
(39:37):
So when you do have the timefor yourself, you use it wisely,
like I'm sure.
As somebody who has two youngkids I don't even know if you
remember what it was like beforekids like your time is so
dramatically different now thatsuddenly, when you have it back,
you're going to be shocked.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yes, yes.
When we send our ourthree-year-old to Nana and
Papa's house for a night, mywife and I sit around and go
like what do we do now?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I guess there's dishes.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I guess there's laundry, but you fall into tasks
.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And so right.
And you say work-life balance.
I mean I guess you have youneed to define what that is.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
That's the first step .
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, I'm so glad we could Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Lisa, thank you so much, and I'm going to post in
the notes where they can findyour book, your bestselling
books, why simple wins kill thecompany.
Um, and where else can theyconnect with you and learn more
about future thing?
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Definitely link in with me on LinkedIn, lisa Bodell
.
Um go to future thinkcom andthere are a lot of things on
there about.
Uh, there's free resources andways that they can start to
think about.
Um simplification so they canget time back.
Right, the idea is get yourtime back so you can do the
things you want to do, reachyour potential, not just the
company's.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Value guys, all about value, lisa.
Thank you so much, lawrence,thanks for joining and we'll
catch you next time.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
Thanks so much.
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