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The Simpler the Better

In start up life, it’s the elevator pitch.

In marketing, it’s the tagline.

These tropes are well known for how to communicate to new people. They’re outside parties. It’s obvious you need to grab their attention with something memorable (and preferably authentic!)

I’ve now realized how much easier it is to let simplicity slide into complexity and opacity in organizational structure. This sclerosis – from a well-intentioned drive to more process (a form of simplicity!) The accretions over the years of small changes, small complexity, add up. Where there was no clarity, individual managers implement their own miniverses of policies that may not cohere with the whole. Outside HR or legal consultants tack on something else, that is like a brutalist table in an arts & crafts living room.

Peter Drucker famously wrote every meeting should be on trial for its life. Individual processes don’t need individual trials, but they should all be on a lifeboat with only so many seats to give out.

Published inBusiness

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