A simple aim brings focus to what people do.
A simple proposition is easy for people to understand.
Simple acts take less time to learn and less time to do, and cost less.
Simple systems take less time to establish, are easy to change and are actually more satisfying for the people who work with them every day.
Simplicity is the knife that cuts through the tangled spaghetti of life’s problems.
The most powerful ideas and solutions to problems are incredibly simple. Truly influential leaders understand this – they know that simplicity is power:
Liberty.
Egalitarian.
Fraternity.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
No taxation without representation.
These are simple thoughts which encapsulate complex ideas. Distilling them took time and hard work, but each became a powerful force.
Simplicity, however, is something that people frown on. One reason is that “simple” gets confused with “simplistic”. Our culture tends to instill in us a sense that a complex understanding of life is a sign of intelligence. We look up to people who use long words, jargon and sophisticated terms, perhaps in the hope that they have the answers to all these hideously complex challenges we face.
Simple also gets confused with easy. Simple thought and ideas are not easy to create.
As Edward de Bono, who has written an engaging book on simplicity, put it, “Simplicity is not easy”.
Reference: MANAGEMENT IN TEN WORDS by Terry Leahy
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