Oh For Those Good Old (Future) Days

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Simple Ain’t … But Should Be!

Competencies: strategic planning, driving strategic direction, planning/organizing, problem solving, technological leadership, managing people, adaptability

Who benefits: idea generator for those in a position of influence

Consultant Usage: insightful message for organizational consultants and executive coaches

What’s it about? I am recommending that you take a moment and read an important post from the World Economic Forum in Davos.  (“The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”)

Author Chris Zook says “one theme seemed omnipresent — that while events are unfolding in the world at an accelerating pace, increasingly complex institutions are less and less able to deal with them.”

This strikes a personal note with me.  It seems the more I learn, the less I understand.  Every day as a customer and a consumer I see things that don’t make sense and ask myself “Why?”  I have avoided many new technological advancements simply because, well … they are not simple enough. 

If you are old enough, you remember the jokes about VCRs and how complex they were to set up.  Things haven’t changed.

There are the Have’s and the Have Not’s in technology.  The Have’s get it and can’t get enough of the good stuff.  The Have Not’s, we don’t get it.  And if (big IF) we buy the latest technological marvel, we end up using 5 – 10% of its potential and we feel that we overpaid and somehow were cheated.  That’s the consumer version of complexity.

There is also the organizational version.  Complex organizations unable to respond to external changes quickly.  Complex strategic plans that are too fuzzy to modify in a timely fashion. 

This is what the authors said about organizational complexity; “In every industry, we discovered companies that were enjoying an inherent advantage in dealing with the increasing tension of faster moving markets and increased internal complexity due to this ability to keep things simpler and more transparent than their rivals.

“Today, complexity has become the silent killer of profitable growth in business, and sometimes of CEO careers.”

The solutions sound simple to me.

For a more indepth understanding of the authors research and their solutions, they have just published Repeatability: Build Enduring Businesses for a World of Constant Change.  Because it has just been released, I have not read beyond the first chapter (free), but I plan to put it on my “to read” list.

For more reading on personal simplicity in a complex personal and work world, devour Jeffrey Kluger’s Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple).  At a minimum you will discover why I am so frequently frustrated with how things work.  Thank you very much!

We use to long for those good old days, known as simpler times.  Today let us wish for the same, only in the future. 

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.