Why Simple Wins by Lisa Bodell

• Something that’s properly simplified is:
• As minimal as possible.
• As understandable as possible.
• As repeatable as possible.
• As accessible as possible.
• Simple things reduce the number of steps, pages, features, functions, sign-offs, requirements, and other hurdles required to get something accomplished. There’s nothing extra, but at the same time, there’s enough to get the job done.
• Simple things are defined by clear, straightforward language. They are comprehensible to someone who doesn’t already have expertise in the subject at hand.
• Simple things can be scaled or replicated. They aren’t one-offs. THey aren’t customized. It should be easy for someone to do them over and over again.
• Simple things are made available and transparent to as many audiences as possible. Outsiders can make us of them with as few gatekeepers as possible.
• Complexity, then, is the lack of these four elements. It’s a process, product, communication, or procedure that isn’t as minimal, understandable, repeatable, and accessible as possible.
• While complexity is bad, it is possible to oversimplify. Organizations can make their products so simple that they’re no longer useful to consumers.
• Some pursuits truly are complicated--by necessity.
• Most people and organizations contribute to complexity unwittingly and unconsciously, and they do so in part because of various cognitive biases that affect them. Two biases in particular are worth mentioning here: our “insider mindset” and our quest for “more”.
• Over and over, we hear that we can best answer the “big questions” if we look deep within ourselves. All of this inward searching may be helpful and good and right. But in the world of business, looking inside has an important consequence: ti leads us to avoid looking outside.
• But our unending focus on what’s happening inside frequently distracts us from something that’s even more important: the customer experience. And all too often, this results in a tide of unintended complexity unleashed upon the people who buy our products and services.
• A second cognitive bias that all too often leads us unwittingly to make life more complex has to do with our demand for reporting and accountability.
• Driving the demand for reporting and accountability is a familiar cuprit: executive disconnect.
• To avoid the consequences of making a mistake, we err on the side of caution, inviting everyone to the meeting, even those who probably will add little to the conversation. We act out of fear, a desire to “cover our behinds”, to be sure “just in case”.
• A great deal of complexity is driven by something even more basic: or emotional needs.
• If emotions like fear generate complexity on the individual level, systemic complexity can emerge when many people interact fearfully or defensively with one another over time.
• Emotions like fear often lead to what we might call a “mindset of more” that tends toward increased complexity. This mindset is everywhere in the corporate world. More, we assume, is better.
• We’ve become so obsessed with the pursuit of more that we’re suspicious of anything that seems less complicated than it would ordinarily need to be. If a solution is too quick or too easy, we doubt it’ll actually work. Or we assume anyone could do it. Or that it isn’t worth as much as we paid to harness it.
• Make anything too complicated, and it won’t get the job done.
• Besides status quo thinking and fruitless initiatives, a number of other telltale signs may suggest the presence of a complexity problem:
• Too many (or too lengthy) approval processes
• Frustrated customers
• Coordination overload
• Too many rule changes
• The end of easy
• Mystery rules
• An acronym “Zoo”
• It may be that your operations are legitimately complex, or that management simply hasn’t communicated enough to explain how things work. But it may also be that these rules, processes, and procedures no longer have a good reason for existing--in other words, complexity.
• Most of us simply want to understand that the majority of our work contributes in some way to the greater good. We want to know that the work we do every day has a purpose.
• Complexity sucks the life out of your career because it forces you to break a sweat while receiving nothing good in return.
• If you get the work right, you get the culture right.
• For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple. Every organization want better performance. And simplicity is the way to get there.
• In a work environment, it isn’t just solitude that helps people become more creative; it’s also contact with a variety of people and ideas.
• The very things they put in place to drive innovation--meetings, reports, policies, procedures, task forces, and governing bodies--wind up constricting it. While some structure is important, the best approach to change and innovation usually isn’t to do more, but to do less. Get rid of the things that aren't’ working to make space for new things that are.
• Eliminating the complexity allows people to escape their routines and try new things. Although largely unseen and unspoken, simplicity is the most fundamental gateway to innovative thinking and action.
• Complexity is stressful.
• Simplicity is compelling all around--and markes reward it.
• So how do you differentiate yourself? Cut the complexity. Make it shockingly easy for the people buying your products and services to get what they want with minimum hassle. Let them experience the joy of doing in five minutes what they thought would take an hour. In other words, simplify.
• Simplicity won’t just well up naturally from lower in the organization. You have to send the right messages. It’s one of the key things leaders do, and it’s an essential skill to learn if you want to become a leader.
• A leader who tackles simplicity can potentially touch everyone and everything in the organization.
• In a complex organization, there are no silver bullets. But moving towards implicit always adds real value.
• After courage, a second characteristic possessed by leaders intent on driving simplicity down into an organization is an understanding of the value of passing things back.
• Effective simplifiers need to have an intuitive appreciation for less. They need to be able to see, in their mind’s eye, how a simpler company will be more efficient, more productive, and most importantly, more profitable. They need to embrace the wisdom of minimalism.
• Any initiative that shakes things up will trigger resistance in an organization, and simplicity is no exception. In theory, everyone likes simplicity, but for many of the reasons we’ve discussed, we all reflexively latch on to the devil we know. Further, while simplicity is great for the company as a whole, it directly challenges certain individuals and groups whose authority is rooted in the outdated, inefficient, overly complex rules, processes, and systems that need to go.
• If you’re a leader hoping to instill an ethos of simplification, you need to exemplify, empower, and reinforce the behaviors associated with simplification. If you’re not prepared to simplify your own work environment, don't direct those who work for you to strip things down.
• Six characteristics of a simplifier:
• Courage: You are not afraid to challenge the status quo.
• Minimalist Sensibility: You know the value of less.
• Results Orientation: SImplicity isn’t just about cutting costs for you.
• Focus: You don’t give up.
• Personal Engagement: You “walk the walk”.
• Decisiveness: You like to move things forward quickly.
• Simplifying effectively requires first that we determine which discrete tasks and actions aren’t adding value and second that we decide to eliminate the offenders. Once people start spending their time on valuable tasks--things that feel worthy of their time and are in support of a purpose--the culture will follow.
• Any simplification effort must break tasks down into the smallest parts possible; only then can people understand them and feel they can take action.
• Just because something is organized does not at all mean it is simple.
• Five steps to simplicity:
• Awareness
• Identification
• Prioritization
• Execution
• Habit formation
• We all begin our journey to simplification by recognizing the toll taken by complexity, not just on our organizations but on us personally.
• Once we’re aware of complexity, we then uncover areas of our work or specific tasks that create frustration obstacles for us and we decide which simplification opportunities are worth pursuing.
• After identifying opportunities for simplification, the next step is to prioritize them. We must evaluate the opportunities using a “time versus value” equation.
• Once we identify the opportunities, we must execute, piloting new ways of getting things done and making adjustments in real time.
• SImplification isn’t a “one and done” properpostion. It has to become part of the way you operate, part of how you approach everything you do.
• Is it valuable? These questions help you decide if something is necessary or worth your time.
• Is it minimal? These questions help you decide if something is streamlined or reduced to it simplest possible form.
• Is it understandable? These questions determine if communication on a topic is as clear as possible.
• Is it repeatable? These questions help you decide if something is as automated, templates, or scalable as possible.
• Is it accessible? These question shel pi determine if an information source is as readily available to its audience as possible.
• Be warned: once you’ve identified the key source of complexity in your work, you’re going to be shocked at how obvious they were. Chances are you’ve know what was wrong, but you’d never really faced up to the reality.
• Leaders should take note of any rule that appears more than once; this indicates a problem area in the business.
• Simplification needs to be ah bait and a way of looking at the challenges we face every day. It needs to be part of every moment and every decision, woven firmly into the culture of business and defining the ethos of each and every employee.
• Culter is the work we do every day.
• It’s hard to abandon a brand or sell an asset. It can feel like you’re waiving the white flag of surrender. But simplifying your portfolio can empower you to focus more effectively on what remains.
• Like master gardeners, outstanding leaders prune carefully because they know that eliminating waste will eventually yield better results.
• Remember, the key to most simplification regimens is to build some momentum--to parlay a few quick wins into something more sustainable.
• Stop hanging out with people who suck your energy, are rude, add no value, or make you feel lousy each time you interact. Say goodbye to bad clients, business partners, and team members.
• Be diligent about decluttering. Get rid of anything that doesn’t have a memory attached or that you can find online. Creating physical space helps create mental space.
• Goals create intention, and intention creates action.
• Battling complexity is never easy, but any barrier that keeps your employees from doing work that matters demands your sustained attention.
• Simplification requires leadership, resilience, tenacity, flexibility, and hard work.