Seeking Simplicity

Simplicity is essential when entering a period of change. We reduce, abbreviate, merge, categorize, breakdown, centralize, divide, codify, graph, model, synthesize and generalize – all with a view of building a common thread of understanding of where we are, where we want to go and how we will get there. Framing a change in simplicity facilitates performance.

However, there are risks to seeking simplicity:

Where we are:
Surface surfing: Seeking simplicity can result in a collection of information that muddies the waters and brings the analysis to false conclusions. To reach the quality and quantity of information required is to know how to manage tensions between simplicity and complexity.
Fear factor: Seeking simplicity often caters to information on what should be heard instead of what needs to be heard. Informants fear change or the truth and their repercussions; collectors fear scope creep and often cannot see what they can’t recognize. Ostensibly, the information collected is easy to explain but nevertheless, erroneous.


Where we want to go:
No appetite: A diet of simplicity will not nourish engagement. If there is no leadership engagement, there is no traction for change and things will stay as they are no matter how effortless the solution looks on paper. Simplicity does not replace belief in a vision.
Easy fit: Simplicity will not have built in comfort. Change pushes people outside their comfort zone no matter how simple it looks. Simplicity does not replace empathy.


How we will get there:
A frame is just a frame: Framing implementation in simplicity doesn’t mean that the implementation is simple. It will bring resistance, realignments, additional costs, skill gaps, and all that change incites within and around us. To quote from historian and philosopher, Mr. Will Durant "Change is certain; progress is not.”
Less is not more: Removing complexity does not necessarily bring about an under expenditure. The costs of any change are not regulated by complexity but rather by “readiness” to change.