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BE A SIMPLIFIER, NOT A COMPLICATOR
Make Precision Execution Seem Easy
Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple.
—RICHARD BRANSON
In our lavishly linked world, with immediate access to an array of information and opinions, it’s tempting to overengineer processes, overperform, or overexplain. Do you provide superfluous jargon-laden details to convince others of your unique qualifications to deal with incredibly complex situations? Rather than coming across as supersmart, you may be experienced as alienating and exhausting. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Complicators reveal their insecurity by amplifying the difficulty of a situation. They are advertising, “I don’t trust you to value me unless I make what I do seem hard.” They generate confusion and a sense of inadequacy in their coworkers. Complicators use buzzwords and policy mumbo-jumbo and tend to be rigid in their thinking as well as risk averse. Complicators create distance between colleagues rather than connecting first.
Simplifiers take intricate situations and provide clear options for action. They are calming and clarifying, and provide focus. When working with simplifiers, people often feel energized, confident, and optimistic. You can identify who’s who in a matter of seconds. Complicators take the problem side of the equation. They love drama, revel in petty details, and are disappointed or slightly annoyed when someone offers a solution. Simplifiers are the opposite. They prioritize action. They size up situations quickly, study circumstances carefully, and prefer to spend their resources on solutions. Simply put, one loves predicaments; the other loves answers.
Translating complex ideas into language that enables your audience to make informed decisions is an art. And it takes time.
THIS IS FOR YOU IF
• Your memos have so many acronyms, they look like eye exam charts filled with random letters.
• Colleagues ask you to slow down, repeat what you said, and then follow up the next day, asking for clarification.
• Coworkers leave lengthy instructions to help you cope when they are out on holiday, and you can’t decide if they are invaluable or infuriating.
• Misunderstandings happen because complicated terms are used that not everyone understands.
TAKE ACTION
If You Are Working with a Complicator
Don’t be embarrassed. Ask for a three-line summary of the problem and a one-line solution before going into the details. If you are leading a team, encourage all members who write memos to begin with an executive summary. Keep the body of the report to as few pages as possible and put footnotes at the end. This provides a rapid understanding of the issues along with a depth of information for those who want more.
Suggest that all emails be only one phone screen in length. Otherwise, pick up the phone.
If You Want to Be a Simplifier
Set a clear intention. Before you set out to do something, you should be 100 percent certain about exactly what it is you want to do. Ask questions of others at the onset to avoid confusing your coworkers later.
Don’t overcomplicate the problem you are about to solve.
Kill your darlings. It’s terrific advice from the great writer William Faulkner. If you’re working on something, and you write a fantastic sentence or create the perfect chart but it doesn’t work with the rest of the project, get rid of it. Be ruthless.
Review your material for: Must Have, Should Have, Good to Have. If it’s a must-have item, keep it. Trim the should have, and consider deleting the good to have (as the latter will likely be less important).
Give yourself enough time—to save your audience their time.
Diversity at work comes in all forms, including how people process information. Find the relevant message for your audience, and be prepared to present it pictorially, numerically, and in direct speech. Try using analogies to build bridges between familiar and new territory.
Avoid elaborate language. No jargon! If you can’t avoid them, define abbreviations, acronyms (the NATO agreement on NASA rockets), and initialisms (the FBI called the CIA to find out who went MIA).
KEEP IN MIND
• Simple solutions are not simplistic; they’re just easy to understand and execute.
• Your value is affirmed when you make it easy for colleagues to digest information.