KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

Though coined in the 1960s by the Navy, the term resonates today. How many times have you sat in a meeting and thought to yourself — “Are we overthinking this? Surely the solution does not require all these steps? Haven’t we tried this already?” For me the term KISS also relates to focus. One of the biggest challenges I have in my personal and work life is understanding what I want to accomplish which makes it impossible to figure out what to do. One of my stalling tactics is to “call a meeting”. I can hear the snickering and eye rolling from those of you who are reading this.

To combat this common pitfall of thinking, our strategic priorities includes the guiding principle of “beginning with the end in mind”. This is the first question is where do we want to end up? My deputy has a variation on that “what does done look like?” We are both working as a team to get the best outcomes with the shortest pathway. Focus and planning helps us to figure out when we are going off the rail, when is a change of course needed, and heaven forbid-do we need to stop doing this?

So three questions to ask BEFORE you get started on a project:

1. Why do we want to do the task we are considering? What problem are we trying to solve? Does the problem even need to be solved?
2. Now what are we going to do? How will we get it done? Which methods are we going to us; another research study, an evaluation, literature review? This step requires “separating the wheat from the chaff.”
3. Lastly what are we going to do? Who are the people we need to have in the room (I encourage to look at those who are not necessarily experts but are very good thinkers). How do we commit to the best ideas and not spin our wheels getting to what done looks like? 

 For me, if we follow the order (why, how, and what), we should be able to get to the outcome more quickly.

I recommend this TED Talk by Simon Sinek. https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action/transcript?language=en 

#logic #innovation #why #bettermeetings