The Beauty of Simplicity

Crafting simple solutions is a dying art.  We are losing the ability to properly identify core problems and create simple solutions in the workforce.  Every manager is consumed with problems in the post-pandemic economy.  Most of these managers default to corrective actions that they know how to take, not necessarily concentrating on the problems they should correct, and the actions needed to correct those problems.  The skill set for identifying problems and creating solutions that are simple and practical needs to return now more than ever for companies that want to remain competitive.

Any manager’s company should screen for the ability to pinpoint core problems.  These are the problems that, when corrected, have an immediate impact of the performance of the organization.  The continually growing ocean of data and metrics is frequently have the opposite impact they are intended to produce.  Many managers, across industries, drift from one small problem to another.  They are deluding themselves into thinking that they are doing their jobs.  But once a core problem is properly identified, they are equally likely to struggle with determining what they must change to, and how to cause the change.  In the absence of careful thought to these questions, chaos across an organization is the result.

Companies must train their managers if needed to create simple and practical solutions.  Today, everybody is fascinated with notion of sophistication and details, whether the details are relevant or not.  Board rooms are consumed with time spent analyzing reports and strategies that are deliberately made to be hundreds of pages, and they are completely absent of specific actions they can take to improve their performance and meet goals.  The reality many companies are struggling with is centered on the fact that complex solutions are going to fail.  Simple solutions have a chance to succeed.

The principal force that stops simple solutions from being utilized in most organizations is emotional resistance to change.  Simple solutions cut through unimportant details, and they do embrace ideologies that are not working.  In most instances, the simple acknowledgement of a problem’s existence by a manager is perceived as an action that creates job security risk.  The simple solution to the problem is frequently perceived as a direct threat to a person’s means of employment.  This cycle of events is devastating to any organization’s performance, and it must change.

Overcoming emotional barriers is not a new phenomenon is the American workforce, but our inability to do so is.  The default response most companies push right now is to create an “analysis” that uses quantitative visuals to prove the existence of the problem and it’s possible solutions.  These “root cause analyses” are the opposite of what their name implies, and the create the feelings of fear and insecurity.  At this juncture, the two sides are fighting fire with fire.  Inevitably, this means that somebody is going to get burnt in the process.  To use such emotions to trigger actions, companies are fostering environments where fear and insecurity are the organizational norms they proactively create.  This approach is extremely ineffective as well.  It may prove useful for the very top-level positions of an organizational chart at the outset, but as you move down the organizational hierarchy it becomes clear the effectiveness of this approach deteriorates quickly.  The implementation of solutions generated through “fight fire with fire” leads to management by edict; “do it or else.”

An effective approach is often counter-intuitive for many executives.  They are not supposed to have all the answers, but they are supposed to manage.  Executives prizing their ability to have the answers they force onto their team create the very environment they likely want to avoid.  The first step in preventing this series of disasters is how we frame the process.  First, we must present the intended audience with a problem that is received by them as their own problem; a major problem at that.  Without providing solutions of their own, the manager needs to begin asking their team to create solutions that are logically tied to the problem. 

Employees frequently default to the adoption of their manager’s assumptions when the are operating in the absence of hard facts.  We want to find the largest data sets to prove our proposed solutions, frequently using statistical models that are completely misunderstood, in order to ensure nobody will assign blame if things do not work out.  It is a widely held consensus that we are dealing with so many unknowns in large organizations today that this type of analysis is guaranteed to fail from the outset.  The only method a management team should accept for a proposed solution is one based upon simple logic. 

Simple logic will inevitably generate simple solutions.  Those tasked with solving a problem should be expected to provide the causes of the problem using “if…then” statements.  For example, a team was told to solve the problem of decreasing profit margins for the third year in a row.  They know revenues are increasing, and expenses are increasing even faster.  They start with the simple first cause, “if expenses continue growing at their current rate, then our profits continue to evaporate.”  Moving onto the next step, “if we continue spending so much money on training new hires to replenish our workforce, then our expenses will continue growing, and then our profits will diminish even further.”  This team ultimately came to the proper conclusion that the revolving door of personnel in a critical role, in this case nurses, did not feel valued by their employer and subsequently left.  They had the core problem.

Reversing this process, they mapped out the same sequence of logic to develop their solutions.  They had simple solutions they could begin leveraging that week to make sure the employees felt valued.  The actions were simple, practical, and they did not require any major investments of new cash or personnel.  They quickly addressed the core problem and the rate of internal attrition decreased by 48% in the first two months. 

This method of problem solving is easily replicated by any organization.  It is not specific to an organization’s size or industry.  This method of framing a problem reveals the true causes at the very core, and it enables those implementing this process to address the core problem over the symptoms.  Any manager, who finds themselves engaged in the time consuming act of firefighting all day every day at work, can quickly pull themselves out of their predicament using this very approach.  The path forward is rooted in the beauty of simplicity.