Can you get your message down to one or two words?

Smart people seem to love complexity, often feeling that the more complex they make things, the more they can find an answer that others can’t.

The image above is from a scene in The Big Short, set in 2005, where one of the lead characters realise just how much a time bomb has been created by “smart” people layering complexity upon complexity to look to create financial value out of, well, dogs**t loans. This led to the Global Financial Crisis from 2008 onwards.

In 2021, though, we still love complexity, seeing investment banks and fund managers hiring the smartest mathematicians and getting them to crunch all kinds of “big data” to see if they can gain an “edge”.

Yes, complexity can be the right approach, but how about sometimes, instead of focussing on ever-increasing layers of complexity, we lead others by keeping it simple?

“Leadership is about people, end of story”, so leading people is about having a message everyone can get behind. Can you keep it simple? Can you get your message down to one or two words? You can, and it can be counter-intuitive. To edit down to one or two words can take time and patience.

My thoughts go to this after spending three hours in a monthly meeting with a client reviewing a key strategy they are seeking to get alignment on…