One of the most difficult things for talented people (and organizations) to do is to drive out complexity. The ultra-successful do it extremely well. The rest of us, not so much.
Albert Einstein once shared, “There are five levels of intelligence: smart, intelligent, brilliant, genius, and simple.” Reaching that top level of capability requires courage. It’s easier to give in to fear and keep doing too much rather than focus on what is truly the highest, best use of your time and talent. Simple is hard.
As a strategy advisor, I guide organizations through intentional decisions that will improve their performance. During this process, the most challenging questions we explore are around what the company will stop doing. Some leaders can quickly answer the question. Yet just as quickly, they’re met with resistance from those wanting to preserve the status quo.
When a team of senior leaders eventually agrees on what they will let go of to drive greater results, often months later, they can find themselves rehashing old debates instead of implementing their strategic plan.
Here are several reasons simplicity can be hard:
- Complexity often feels like thoroughness or rigor; anything easier seems like cutting corners.
- Complexity accumulates invisibly over time (processes, approvals, extra reporting).
- Leaders often get rewarded for adding things instead of ending things.
- Simplifying requires saying no.
- There can be ego wrapped up in complexity—managing complicated things signals importance.
The discipline of subtraction is a high-level leadership skill. With today’s ever-expanding complexity, exploring what could be valuable to stop doing leads to breakthrough opportunities. Complexity is a hidden tax on execution speed, joy, and results.
Challenge yourself to examine what you need to let go of to be more successful. Work to notice efforts that take valuable energy, mindshare, and time but aren’t returning strong results.
These questions help drive out complexity:
- What am I (or my team) doing that no longer serves its original purpose?
- What would I tell someone else to stop doing?
- If we were starting fresh today, would we do it this way?
These questions help you move from audit (what exists) to honesty (why it exists) to action (what actually matters with what we know now). That’s how you go from smart to simple.
