Selfish, Scared and Stupid: Stop Fighting Human Nature And Increase Your Performance, Engagement And Influence

CHAPTER 10 Make it simple

If you can’t explain it to a six year old,you don’t understand it yourself.

Einstein

To be perfectly honest, writing an entire chapter on the importance of simplicity does seem something of an oxymoron. As a small measure of acknowledgement to this contradiction, we have included this simplified cheat sheet of shortcuts.

MAKE-it-simple shortcuts

1. We are already ridiculously busy and overloaded with information, so make things easy to digest and simple to action.
2. If you make our lives more complicated, we will simply ignore you.
3. We have more options than we need, so make yours simple to understand.
4. If you can’t fit it onto a post-it or explain it to a six year old, it needs simplifying.
5. Identify the most basic need or value you need to satisfy and start there.
6. Information curators are the new power brokers.

If, however, you wish to delve a little deeper into the complicated world of simplicity, please read on.

Confusion paralyses us

We adore the term ‘analysis paralysis’. It truly captures the indecision that arises when simplicity is absent and complexity reigns. Today we really can, and frequently do, know too much. In this age of information overload, the famous quote by legendary martial artist Bruce Lee hits the nail squarely on the head: ‘If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done’.

Where once holding knowledge, especially secret knowledge, gave you power, in the age of Google and WikiLeaks information ...