Simpler Business Institute

In this newsletter I want to alert you to a couple of the key barriers to implementing simpler ways of doing things in business - the people who don't want you to know there might be an easier way of achieving something, and those who are lost in their complex worlds. Let's start with the second group.

Group 1: The complexity brigade.

These are typically very smart people who have been educated in sophisticated techniques to handle complex situations. And they go looking for complexity to apply their expertise.

Often, but not always, they come from engineering, science, accounting or IT backgrounds. You can recognize them by the amount they write in reports to you and the jargon they use in their communications. They like to show people how educated they are - it's just a fact of life. I know this because I was trained as an engineer and I was part of the complexity brigade.

The real challenge for me came in my early 30s when I was asked to summarize an 80 page business plan into a 1-page Executive Summary - I remember spending hours and hours on this, but achieving a fantastic result in the end for my work team.

It was then that I understood the 17^th Century quote of the famous French mathematician Blaise Pascal "I would have written you a shorter letter but I did not have the time", meaning that it takes more thought to put your ideas clearly into a short document than into a long treatise. Now there's a challenge!

So if, as an owner or manager, you are confronted with this, one of the first things is to ask your people to restrict the volume they write or report to you. If you are used to receiving a 10 page report on something, ask for it to be no more than 2 pages. Or even just 1 page. Perhaps get them to put things in bullet point form eg in a Now-Where-How format. Or put the explanations into an appendix that may be read only if necessary.

You'll get lots of resistance to this at first but persistence will bring rewards in time and satisfaction for you and your people.

Remember Leonardo Da Vinci's quote that "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Group 2: The complexity gatherers

These are often the middle level or senior people in a business who want to show others, particularly their managers, their jobs are really complex and they are the only ones who can handle this complexity.

They are the ones who try to make work appear more complex than it really is as a way of protecting their positions in the organization. You can often see these as the people who only take short holidays and always come back to an overflowing in-tray because "No-one else can do my work!"

They also horde critical information and give out just a little bit here and there so that others can get some of the work done, but never all of it.

How to start overcoming this barrier

If you recognize any of these characteristics in the people in your business, you will be confronting people who resist simplification. To start to break down this barrier, try:

-        Rewarding people for simpler ways to achieve good outcomes in anything

-        Restricting the volume that people write, in any document in your business

-        Providing some of the books on simplicity in business (see the list in the e-book Simpler Business - A success strategy for tough times)

-        Motivating people to use some of the simple problem solving tools

-        Looking to simplify any of your business processes and rewarding success here.

Final words

Over my years of promoting and implementing simpler ways of doing things in business, I've noted that some of the best drivers for simplicity are female and/or Generation Y business owners and managers.

It seems that both these groups like to cut through the clutter and get to good answers as fast and as easily as possible. And they like to spend their time on the high-value activities that deliver success to themselves and, more or less, to their colleagues.

If you have any friends or colleagues whom you think will get value from the message in this newsletter, please forward it on.

For now, simply does it!

Ian Dover