Confessions of a Simplicity Convert

I was almost offended.?I vividly recall the repulsion I felt to the coaching received on my communication to leadership early in my career.?Can you relate?

What I Heard (THEM):?Keep it to three bullets; the shorter the better.

My Internal Reaction (ME):?But it can’t be culled down; the issue is far too complex!

THEM:?Cull the message down to the fewest words needed to tell the story or make the ask. Keep cutting the words until you can’t cut any more.

ME:?But the nuances will be lost, and nuances matter in making this decision!

THEM:?Imagine you were talking to a kindergartener – how would you say it?

ME: Is that how they got to be leaders? Should I not expect more processing power and capacity for complexity from my leadership?

THEM:?Remind them of the last time you met and the overall context and history of the situation at the beginning of every interaction.

ME:?If it’s that important a topic, (which of course mine is), shouldn’t they remember it by now? We’ve had 5 meetings about this already!

THEM:?If you can’t keep it to one page, don’t send it.

ME:?So, you’re saying I need to whittle down months of research and solutioning to one page??Do we care at all about quality of thought and educating our leadership on all that we’ve learned?

THEM:?Make it easy for them to just say yes or no.

ME:?But if it were that easy, it wouldn’t require them! The answer is far more complicated than this false binary choice.

THEM:?Organize your thoughts visually, segmenting them into buckets with clear labels for each; make your content aesthetically balanced and as scannable as possible.

ME:?Why should style matter more than the content on the page? They should focus on what I say not how I say it.?

… and through the years, my previously appalled and judgmental stance shifted:?first to one of acknowledgment and tolerance, and then to one of empathy and outright evangelism.?

Soon I realized that the attachment to my rebuttals and the indignation of my resistance stemmed primarily from making it about me:?

• My effort:?showcasing all of the work I had done and my commitment to the goals
• My knowledge:?representing all that I knew, my thoughtfulness and my expertise on the matter
• My recognition:?getting the praise and accolades associated with the above

(For all of you “good students” motivated by pleasing the teacher, here’s to you ??)

The focus on me crowded out my ability to focus on the goal – which is to get that decision or direction, and keep moving the proverbial ball forward.?

(Notably, both effort and knowledge are far better showcased through simplified and culled outputs, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting that desired recognition – but that fell outside of my 101 understanding at the time.)

Through the years, I have learned why that coaching is spot on, especially as I’m now in the shoes of asking for that simplicity, clarity of thought and synthesis of others. In fact, the ability to whittle down a narrative or ask to its most essential elements is ever more important in an age of perpetual change, shifting leadership, and multi-layered priorities. I would argue it's game-changing.

Why the coaching is critical:

• Context switching:?in today’s meeting-packed reality, leaders are back-to-back in conversations that represent a wide variety of topics, levels and demands, often requiring different mental maps for each.?You can’t get the best of a mind unless you create the space for it to access its long term memory to bring forth that knowledge and expertise, and have it play with the new information presented.??The idea is to help ground the mind in the history and context relevant to the situation, then clearly overlay the imperative and specific ask at hand. (More on the consequences of context switching.)
• Cognitive overload:?being laser focused on the data points that actually matter means first needing to see and clearly articulate those data points to avoid extrinsic noise and the cognitive demands that such noise has on working memory (which depletes precipitously). By the end of the day, 95% of what leaders hears throughout their meeting marathon is either forgotten outright or pruned by the brain.?Getting to the point, with the most relevant information spelled out and reinforced makes the most of leadership brain and time. (More on optimizing brain effort.)
• Lateral connectivity:?connecting the dots across a bigger picture to enable strategic decision-making primarily happens at the meta level, in the arena of pattern making and recognition.?It doesn’t happen in the weeds, in the specificity of the case at hand. Helping to elevate a situation and synthesize its elemental points is key. Then leadership can be in choice about probing to fill in the gaps of their understanding by asking for details, should it need them. (More on the importance of lateral thinking.)
• Collective memory: much like individuals, organizations are collectively dealing with their own ADHD reality, punctuated by continuous leadership shifts, changing org designs, and high attrition. These shifting foundations make it ever more challenging for organizations to maintain a consistent collective memory through time. The enterprise thus risks increasingly relying on its short-term memory and focusing on the next shiny priority du jour, often to the detriment of achieving longer-term and higher-level goals. The simpler the narrative at hand, the easier for the enterprise to recall it through these shifts and have it endure. (More on the forgetting curve.)
• Collective will: in the game of telephone that is often the effort of aligning people around a shared goal, a simpler rallying call is a more effective rallying call. The easier that ask is to convey, the lower the probability that the call to action will get Frankensteined along the way. Chances are it will get valued even more highly by people because of their ease of understanding it. (A fascinating study on the impact of simplicity on cognitive bias.)

I should add one other lesson and overall benefit that internalizing this coaching brings:?strengthening your own empathy muscle.?

By being thoughtful, succinct and essential, you build the muscle

... of putting yourself in others’ shoes

... of meeting others where they are

... of enabling them to access their highest and best selves

… in service of the shared, higher goal.??You, in fact, build the muscle of leadership.