Sherpa Alliance

“Keep it simple stupid” can be the KISS of death.  Here’s why, as captured by one of my favorite quotes:

"I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity but I’d give my life for simplicity on the far side of complexity” (Oliver Wendell Holmes).

Simplicity this side of complexity is stupid simple and simplicity on the far side of complexity is elegantly simple.  Maybe “simple” versus “simpel” (intentional spelling – where the “el” of “simpel” stands for elegantly simple).  Or in other words:

“Any idiot can simplify by ignoring the complications. But it takes real genius to simplify by including the complications” (John Johnson).

So be careful.  When you are in the middle of a complicated matter and you hear someone say, “can’t we just keep it simple?” then that’s an alarm bell - we may be bouncing off the complexity back towards stupid simplicity rather than persisting on moving through complexity towards elegant simplicity.  A dead give-away is when you hear the word “just” – e.g “can’t we just …”.

It’s something we often experience when it comes to strategic planning and implementation.  We hear things like, “we tried strategic planning and it just didn’t work”, or “our business is so fast moving we just like to keep things organic around here”. Simple.  Stupid simple.  A strategy tragedy.

Instead, we should persist in moving through the complexity of strategic planning and implementation in increasingly turbulent times, towards the elegant simplicity of translating strategy and execution into traction.  “Simpel”.