“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”
– Pete Seeger, American folk singer (1919 – 2014)
At this stage of my career, I don’t even try to act like I believe it when someone says, “Well, Steve, our business is VERY complex.” Politely as I can, I reply, “Is not!” And we’re off to the races.
Complexity — rarely real, but even when it is — is like five feet of Iowa black topsoil, bursting with seeds of excuses and weeds of entanglement.
My theory is that people desperately want their stuff to be complex, because it would make them unique if it was. If our business is really complex, we’ll stay in the office until ten, skip vacations, family birthdays and anniversaries, and we’ll grind. “Look at me,” we’ll think, “I am working harder than everyone else, and even though my resting heart rate is 133, I am going to protect my co-workers from themselves in the very complex thing…”
In short, they think if their stuff is complex, it makes them unique.
What makes one unique in business, though, is making things simple. Steve Jobs focus was on the interface, and Apple® provides a superior user experience, not the best technology. Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton both had one thing that was not negotiable — and the public knew what both of them were about, even though their ideals and approaches to the job were different, to say the least.
Uniqueitude (this is a word I coined just now — you-NEEK-ih-TUDE — is the act of being unique. In sales, it can be the handwritten note. In executive management it can be the anniversary gift to the spouse of one of your VP’s who’ve been burning the midnight oil. For any leader, the ability to say, and enforce, “We’re not going to do that, because this other thing is more important, and we’re really good at it…” Commitment, confidence, preparedness — they’re all elements of Uniqueitude.
Let’s look at the complexity and probe it for simple elements. Those elements are where the simplicity lies, ready to be awakened and leveraged to bring about the kind of meaningful change we’re expected to create.
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