Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters

by Lisa Bodell Narrated by Steven Menasche

Overview

Imagine what you could do with the time you spend writing emails every day. Complexity is killing companies' ability to innovate and adapt, and simplicity is fast becoming the competitive advantage of our time. Why Simple Wins helps leaders and their teams move beyond the feelings of frustration and futility that come with so much unproductive work in today's corporate world to create a corporate culture where valuable, essential, meaningful work is the norm. By learning how to eliminate redundancies, communicate with clarity, and make simplification a habit, individuals and companies can begin to recognize which activities are time-sucks and which create lasting value. Lisa Bodell's simplification method has several unique principles: ¿ Simplification is a skill that's available to us all, yet very few leaders use it. ¿ Simplification is the right thing to do-for our customers, for our company, and for each other. Operating with simplification as our core business model will make it easier to be respectful of each other's time. ¿ Simplification drives culture, and culture in turn drives employee engagement, customer relations, and overall productivity. This book is inspired by Bodell's passion for eliminating barriers to innovation and productivity. In it, she explains why change and innovation are so hard to achieve-and it's not what you might expect. The reality is this: we spend our days drowning in mundane tasks like meetings, emails, and reports. These are often self-created complexities that prevent us from getting to the meaningful work that truly matters. Using simple stories and techniques, Why Simple Wins shows that by using simplicity as an operating principle, we can eliminate the busy work that puts a chokehold on us every day, and instead spend time on the work that we value.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

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

- Arianna Huffington, Author of Thrive and The Sleep Revolution

"There are two ways to achieve simplicity: ignorance and elegance. Lisa Bodell empowers us to move toward the elegant, delivering practical tools for reducing time wasted on low-value tasks so we can free up energy for innovative thinking."

- Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take

"Americans work among the longest hours of any advanced economy. We’re time starved, busy, burned out and disengaged at work. But far from throwing up her hands in despair, Lisa Bodell uses compelling real world'stories, eye-popping statistics and practical hands-on tools to show how work itself has become too complex, and how simplifying can help reclaim what’s gotten lost: time for work that matters. Why simple Wins is a must-read for 21st century workplaces."

-Brigid Schulte, award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love & Play When No One Has the Time and director of the Better Life Lab at New America

"Complexity is at the center of the world’s most significant challenges. Lisa Bodell shines a bright light on the single most significant leadership priority of this era. We need to simplify everything!"

- Bill McDermott, Chief Executive Officer, SAP

"Through Why Simple Wins, Lisa Bodell demonstrates that simplification is more than another buzzword. It must become our new way of working."

- Frank Brown, Managing Director and COO, General Atlantic, and Former Dean of INSEAD

"Lisa Bodell unearths the root of complexity: the fears, need for control, and risk aversion of human beings. She also shows us the path toward simplicity, where removing layers of process and bureaucracy becomes an ethical imperative."

-Joel Klein, Chief Policy & Strategy Officer, Oscar Insurance; former Chancellor, New York City Public Schools

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

-Warren Berger, Bestselling author of A More Beautiful Question

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

-Camille Mirshokrai, Managing Director Leadership Development and Succession Planning - Accenture

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

-Sir Ken Robinson, educator and New York Times Best Selling Author, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

"Lisa Bodell has created the definitive guide for halting complexity-and owning up to our individual roles in creating it. This book empowers us to stop valuing more, more, more and instead focus our efforts on what matters for success."

-Seth Godin, author

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172276774
Publisher:	Ascent Audio
Publication date:	10/18/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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