Go Boldly: Five Ways To Embrace Today’s Complexity

We all know that unnecessary complexity is a bad thing. It can slow down innovation, increase costs, and frustrate talent. But not all complexity is avoidable, and not all complexity is bad. It is overly simplistic to focus only on simplicity. 

The intensifying pace of digital disruption across industries, economic uncertainties, cyber threats, political tensions in some regions, urgency of ESG challenges, a global pandemic, and more have added to personal and professional agendas and pushed scenario planning in new directions. 

At the same time, the turbulence affords opportunity to adapt and accelerate strategic priorities that build competitive differentiation and create more impact. Companies are forging new partnerships, pursuing new investments, integrating new talent—all while we prepare for the unpredictable.

In short, we need to manage the business in tandem with changing—sometimes transforming—the business, at a pace and level of complexity most have never experienced before. Much of this is unavoidable, and some of it can be good for the long-term health of our companies, communities, and teams if managed well.

The big challenge is to find ways to make complexity work for you. Here are five approaches that have helped me.

1.   Welcome reality. Many business leaders tell me that their first giant step was to change their mindset. It starts by acknowledging that taking things off the agenda will not impede broader goals. You can go further, and have fun with it. Remember Rubik’s Cubes? Yes, they are complicated, but once you see the patterns and start moving things around, they become exciting.

2.   Get the right sequencing. Management is all about prioritizing. This is easy to forget when everything feels urgent. If you are on a multiyear journey, be deliberate about what happens in year 1 vs. 2 or later. Sometimes the right answer isn’t not doing something, it is just to do it later.

3.   Scale Agile. In the opening months of the pandemic, many managers used agile techniques to innovate more quickly than they ever thought possible. Now we need to keep it up, at scale.

4.   Diffuse FOMO (fear of missing out). It isn’t practical for everyone to be involved in everything. Entrust line executives, subcommittees, or cross-functional project committees. Design metrics and forums that add value and remove roadblocks. Consider who needs to be involved and limit to no more. 

5.   Create leverage. In the same vein, not everything can flow through the CEO. Don’t be the roadblock. Build a leadership team where individuals understand their purpose, direction, and accountabilities. Design the model to develop future talent and enable flexibility—because new issues and even more complexity will inevitably emerge.