LEGO executive shares corporate lessons, advice for supercharging creativity

跳过柯达, regional president of the LEGO Group’s Americas business, challenged the 第39届F. 威廉困难 Lecture in Business Administration to 尝试一些意想不到的事情:思考 内部 这个盒子. 
  
“Constraints aren’t limitations, they’re inspirations for your creativity,” Kodak 说 during his March 6 presentation, “Supercharge Creativity with Constraints,” in 火博体育的甘尼特礼堂. “By restraining the amount of options you have, you 推动自己寻求新的解决方案. It sounds counterintuitive, but by removing options, 你可以提高你创作的速度.” 
  
In business, it’s important to obey the limits of time and space, fiscal responsibility, 和环境可持续性，柯达指出. 为了证明你不需要 much of something to be creative — and in fact, boundaries are beneficial — he invited the audience to take part in a few interactive exercises, one of which asked each individual to build their own duck using the six LEGO bricks they received before 讲座开始了. As neighbors compared and observed how differently each of their ducks was assembled, Kodak proved his point — that there are myriad ways 用有限的资源去创造. 
  
Unbounded innovation — from opening new amusement parks to developing video games — at times put a financial strain on the LEGO Group, Kodak explained as he presented a glimpse into the company’s evolution since its beginnings in 1932. 

  
“We had to focus on delivering a core business that we were really good at,” Kodak 说. “There’s a power in doing something you know well and doing that vertically, and there’s a huge opportunity in partnering with other industries to get your product 进入他们的空间.” 
  
Staying true to the LEGO Group’s four promises — play, people, partner, and planet — has allowed the company to weather two major financial crises and a global health 危机，柯达指出. “Our product and our brand come through in how we think about 我们的人和我们的公司.” 
  
Among the personal lessons he has learned over the years, he has found that external is greater than internal, the team is greater than ego, execution is greater than 策略，而学习胜于完美.  

It matters what you can execute more than what you can imagine sometimes. ... 不 让完美挡住更好的路.”

跳过柯达

乐高集团美洲地区总裁

柯达于2002年在美国加入乐高集团.S. 销售和领导全球零售，营销， and supply chain teams previously for the company. 在乐高集团之前，他花了 15 years in advancing roles at Heinz, Ocean Spray, and P&G.

每年的F. 威廉困难 Lecture at 火博体育大学 was inaugurated in 1985 and 由于F. 威廉·哈德，火博体育大学的一名家长 1968年至1980年担任理事. The lecture invites industry leaders to explore the current business environment and the challenges that lie ahead. 
 
This year’s lecture was organized by Matt Lucas, Skidmore’s 10th F. 威廉困难 工商管理主席. 

 
In addition to delivering his lecture, Kodak visited Skidmore classes and participated 在与学生和教师的其他活动中.  
 
This year, the College also hosted a “乐高大师赛”式的比赛, the Skidmore Building Challenge, where student groups were asked to build a Skidmore-themed project 在一天之内.  
 
“It’s all about collaboration — about getting a team of people who work really well together,” 说 Johnny Mulcahy ’24, a double major in music and health and human physiological sciences, who was part of the winning team that depicted a Northwoods garden scene 用乐高积木. “It’s sort of what 创造性思维很重要 is about at the end 当天的.”