Simple
I recently witnessed an unreal case of over convoluting while tackling an issue. We had this project where the solution adopted was excessively complicated. In retrospect, this solution might have been chosen precisely because it was complicated, thus building a complex process made us feel smart even though it did not help to efficiently tackle the initial issue. Needless to say we were not as clever as we thought we were, many unpredicted edge cases appeared and we had to make efforts to fix these unexpected issues. Second was the on-boarding of new comers who frankly had a hard time getting used to the necessary complexity. As I reflect back on our approach and try to find out what could have been done to do it better, I realize that the main reason for our failure was this tendency to build complex and smart systems.
This mere example illustrates a general observation that I’ve made over the past few decades of professional experiences: the more experience you become, the more you solve real world problems with simple and direct approaches. Formulated this way, it may seem obvious to the reader, however I’ve witnessed countless occurrences of people jumping right into the solutions when facing a problem, instead of analyzing the issue in depth and try to find out what the characteristics of this particular problem are, what makes it specific.
Less experienced friends are often deluded in that they think that experience allows you think about more complex systems and thus handling harder problems. This idea is not necessarily wrong, however older professionals do tackle difficult issues not by conceptualizing mentally complicated schemes, but rather by simplifying the initial problem and breaking it down into easier ones.
I’ve had the opportunity to learn from seasoned specialists in my own professional context, but also during my studies, or when listening to prominent thinkers in their own fields. When asked a question, a young mind might lose her thought and audience in unclear and unnecessary details that don’t matter at all. On the contrary, the experienced person is able to explain in simple words and powerful comparisons the main ideas. In fact, a real master of any subject is able to make it simple for anybody to understand. This saying goes against the mentality of the education system in many countries in the world.
The consequences of not being aware of this truth have deep impacts on several aspects of one’s lives and make it harder for people to go forward. For instance, a simple corollary of the thesis is that you should always keep the initial objective in mind. That way, you are not overwhelmed by you execution and you keep the agility to adapt your response in case of evolution of the problem. This principle also tells you another thing implicitly: know what kind of subjects you want to put you mind and energy into. This is yet another trivial statement once again, but I watched many acquaintances getting lost and overwhelmed by events that didn’t matter at all.
Finally, there is some relationship with the speech that is worth mentioning. As your degree of mastery of a given subject improves, you not only are able to put your ideas into simpler words, but you also put them into fewer words. And this is probably the second sign of being with someone that show great experiences. She says few words so that you can ask questions, she never imposes her ideas onto you but lets you follow your own thinking. I sincerely hope that any person that reads this will be aware from now on of the little known value of simplicity.