Simply Effective

SEVEN

Simplicity Starts with You

EVERYONE IS FAMILIAR WITH THE term KISS: “Keep it simple, Stupid.” It’s a trite and overused phrase and may not seem to belong in a serious business book. But if you are in a position of leadership—whether of an entire company, a division, a function, a team, or a project—that’s your challenge: how do you keep things simple in the face of the complexities arrayed against you?

You certainly face a lot of complexities, stemming as they do from structural mitosis, product proliferation, process evolution, and your own behavior and that of your colleagues, and it’s clear that the job will never be finished. Even with an action framework for combating complexity over the long haul, it may be tempting to think that ...