By David Brewster June 2007
“I am constantly amazed at how stupid I was two weeks ago.” This is a wonderful comment on lifelong learning from American consultant and writer Alan Weiss. It holds a lot of truth. It is incredible how even a small experience or lesson can make our world look quite different from what it did only yesterday.
I can tell you that this is certainly true for me. After what is now six years of writing about simplicity, management and business, I sometimes feel like I’ve only just started. I know I have contradicted myself more than once. Every client I work with gives me a new perspective that can send my thoughts on a new journey.
Take complexity. We’ve identified many sources of it over the last six years. But there are probably only two that I could hold as anything close to absolute. And they aren’t processes or people issues or PowerPoint points. They boil down to managers - at all levels - trying to do what someone else has told them is the right thing.
The first is a misplaced assumption that because an action or strategy has worked for someone else, it will work for us too. This is the organizational equivalent of thinking that because the coat on the person next to me looks good on them, it will look good on me too.
This assumption is widespread and is reinforced by a frequent emphasis on case studies in management education and literature. It doesn’t hold up because everyone’s context is different. I might be able to force myself into the coat, but chances are doing so will be hard work and leave me feeling uncomfortable.
The second source of complexity is another misplaced assumption: that there is one set of ‘right things’ to do that will make an organization ‘perfect’. It’s the organizational equivalent of thinking that the right combination of cosmetic surgery will make me look like Brad Pitt.
This assumption is reinforced by frequent stories of ‘superhero’ CEOs who turn companies around with just the right set of decisive actions. Unfortunately, there is no ‘perfect’ organization - not for long, anyway. Today’s ‘perfect’ organization is tomorrow’s basket case. So there can be no one right way of achieving ‘perfection’.
These two assumptions drive complexity by distracting organizations and their people from being themselves and doing what it is they do best. Paradoxically, they rest on a further assumption that business is more simple than it really is. And they share the misconception that at some stage it will be okay to stop learning.
If you want to simplify your business, the only real way of doing so is to accept that your complexity is yours alone. Reject ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions and find your own best way of doing things.
In short, never stop learning.
©June 2007 Business Simplification