Book Review: “Kill the Company”: October/November 2012

Kill the Company
 

By Lisa Bodell
Bibliomotion
256 pages; $27.95
ISBN-13: 978-1937134020
 

Reviewed by Brian Weberg

“It’s all about culture,” says Lisa Bodell, founder and CEO of futurethink, an innovation research and training firm. She believes the inefficiency and complacency common in corporate culture today robs us of the ability to create the thoughtful, risk-tolerant environment that encourages innovation and supports investments for the future.
 
In “Kill the Company,” her first book, Bodell writes about business culture, but her ideas and suggestions will appeal to managers and employees in both the public and private sectors.
 
The  book is an easy-to-read, straight-forward tonic for what ails many organizations—the complacency and comfort that sets in after years of success and that ultimately blinds many of us to external challenges and internal needs for change and innovation.
 
Bodell describes business cultures as either positive (the good), negative (the bad) or complacent (the worst). She then takes readers on a ride through several useful and informative examples, ideas and exercises designed to help create a positive work environment.
 
Her “Kill the Stupid Rule” exercise is an attractive tool for almost any organization. It begins by asking employees: “If you could kill or change all the stupid rules that get in the way of doing your work or serving our customers, what would they be and how would you do it?”
 
Eleven more ways to instigate change are outlined in her “Innovation Tool Kit” at the end of the book, including “Killer Queries,” “Picture the Future” and “Assumption Reversal.” 
 
This is good stuff. Bodell’s energy, enthusiasm and experience are evident throughout this concise, quick read. Perhaps most important, she breaks through the old strategic planning models with a new approach that puts more responsibility (and power) for change and innovation into the hands and minds of mid-level employees.
 
She also offers a simple yet intriguing “from the outside in” model for identifying new opportunities and jumpstarting new behaviors. This exercise asks employees to adopt the roll of competitor to their own organization and find ways to “put [it] out of business or render [its] function obsolete.” 
 
These tools can help motivate employees who have gone through traditional initiatives, only to see very little change. Bodell makes the point early on:  Innovation begins with you. “Kill the Company” provides some useful ideas and concrete tools that can help each of us live up to that challenge. 
 
Note: Futurethink is an internationally recognized firm Bodell founded on the principle that everyone has the power to innovate; they just need the knowledge and tools to know how to do it. She has provided training to NCSL audiences at the NCSL Legislative Summit and NCSL Senior Management Leadership Seminar.

Brian Weberg directs the Legislative Management Program for NCSL.