Change Your Character – Bart Simpson, Chief Strategy Officer

Written by Mike Brown | Jun 4, 2008 10:00:00 AM

There’s been perhaps no greater disruptive force to come on the scene in the past 20 years than Bart Simpson. And in a business environment where disruptive strategy might be the only thing you can do to gain a near term advantage, couldn’t we all learn a thing or two if Bart were the Chief Strategy Officer at our company.

So as a result, let’s kick Bart upstairs and see how disrupting life in Springfield can be applied to disrupting competitors and markets. Try to generate at least 3 new competitive strategy possibilities from each approach Bart employs:

Having an “in your face” attitude
Not being restricted by respect for authority
Displaying a very sharp wit
Showing some signs of good behavior and character
Using a healthy dose of street smarts
Making friends with less popular people
Devising elaborate and complex pranks
Continually getting into something
Playing jokes on people over the phone
Mooning people
Displaying some unexpected talents
Becoming easily distracted from the task at hand
Using an alias to hide his part in creating mayhem
Reveling in his mischief and rebellion

One caution: using Bart Simpson in the Change Your Character creative thinking exercise will lead to ideas that could be illegal, immoral, or create such bad PR that you’d never pursue them. Yet, those possibilities may have the seeds of really great strategy. Use the Shrimp exercise discussed in a previous post to turn outlandish Simpsonesque ideas into more practical ones.

Check out a compilation of "Change Your Character" creative thinking exercises and information on its use. – Mike Brown

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The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.

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