A very powerful quote that I read some years ago goes something like this – “There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.”

In business, as in other walks of life, we tend to look down upon simplicity. There has always been a feeling that if situations and issues are not analysed in depth and from all angles, we might end up missing something. This is the obsessive fear of omission.

Yet, as the world becomes more and more complex, there is great virtue in simplifying. Simplifying complex issues makes it easy for everyone in the organisation to take quick decisions. And you will find that decisions based on simplicity and common sense will usually be the right one.

However, in this context we must, as Edward de Bono explained, distinguish between simplicity, simplistic and oversimplification. Simplistic means that you don’t understand the subject and have come out with a simplistic approach. Oversimplification means that you have simplified the matter too much and have left out important aspects of it. Simplicity is finding powerful, elegant solutions which are not overly complex; it requires a thorough grasp of the subject and the ability to pick out the important.

Here’s to looking at things with Simplicity!

Visual courtesy : https://www.flickr.com/photos/suvodeb/