All apples are fruits, but that doesn’t mean that all fruits are apples.  Apples and oranges are not interchangeable.  I feel the same way about “simple” and “easy”.  Things that are initially easy are simple, but this doesn’t mean that all simple things are initially easy.  For example, riding a bike is simple and easy, right?  Not really.  Nobody jumped on a bike for the first time and said, “Whoa, this is easy and simple!”  Instead, we practiced with training wheels and then after that we crashed and fell a lot until we finally figured out how to ride a bike.  Now riding a bike is simple, because we put the work.

We live in a world that is growing increasingly complex, and we keep trying to find ways to simplify it.  Getting to simple is not easy.  It’s not magic.  Getting to simple is hard work.  Making things simple requires 2 distinct processes.  You need one person to communicate things in a way that reveals the essence AND the person listening needs to put in the mental work to internalize concepts until they understand them.  Often, if we don’t think something is simple we blame the person for not being able to boil a complex idea into a one pager or 3 bullet points on a slide. However, if we are honest with ourselves we aren’t always willing to put in the hard work to think through concepts in order to make them simple.

Together we are trying to do things that are simple but not easy.  We are trying to be more patient centric and we are evolving to more of a strategic account management thought process where we spend more trying to understand our customers and accounts, plan how to deliver value, and execute the plan in a way that will provide value to customers.  These concepts are simple, but all of the work that goes into being able to do these things is not easy.  There are a lot of working parts and we need to put in the due diligence to think through how they fit together.

As leaders, how are we setting the standard that we expect people to spend significant time thinking through concepts before saying, “It’s not simple enough” and throwing out the ideas?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry