The Paradox of Simplicity: Exploring the Rejection of Trivial Solutions

Have you ever been in a situation where you or your team proposed a solution to a complex problem, only to find it seems too simple? If so, congratulations, you're human. Allow me to explain.

On one hand, logically speaking, simple solutions are desirable. This is certainly true if the solution effectively solves the problem and is easy to implement, manage, replicate, etc. On the other hand, these simple solutions are often rejected by managers for various reasons. I want to explore both perspectives: the management and the engineers who proposed the solution.

The managers

Managers often reject simple solutions proposed by their subordinates. There could be several reasons for this, but I want to focus on a few that I believe are the most significant and challenging to overcome. Most of these originate from cognitive biases, which fundamentally shape our identities and often protect us. Hence, these biases are a part of our nature, making them particularly difficult to navigate.

Perception of Complexity and Value

How do we evaluate solutions? Without hard evidence and universally trusted numbers, it becomes a complex cognitive process. This is why managers like numbers. They can justify their decisions once they have a clear Return on Investment (ROI) in mind. It may seem that a simple solution, which is easier and potentially cheaper to implement and maintain, would yield a high ROI, right? This is where our cognitive biases start kicking in.

The Complexity Bias makes people lean towards complex solutions, often overlooking simpler alternatives. People tend to believe that more complicated solutions are superior and robust, even when simpler ones might be just as effective and even better.

Another interfering bias is the Effort Justification. It is a person's tendency to attribute greater value to an outcome they have worked hard to achieve. What managers often overlook is that a simple solution does not mean that no effort is invested. On the contrary, simple solutions usually require more mental effort. However, for some reason, we seem to have stopped valuing the “brain work” a while back.

Lack of Understanding and Trust

This point isn't directly related to any specific cognitive biases. I want to discuss the impact of misunderstanding and trust issues, as these can amplify the effects of other cognitive biases that I'll mention later.

A typical manager's thought process can be quite simple: "If I don't understand it, it must be wrong. And since I don't trust you (the engineers), you must also be wrong." Sounds harsh, but it is the sad reality.

A manager should either understand the solution or trust the engineers who do. Ideally, both conditions should be met. If both are in place, that's excellent, but it's rare.

As I mentioned, this issue isn't directly tied to a cognitive bias, there's one that potentially triggers it - confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to process information by seeking or interpreting information that aligns with one's existing beliefs. Essentially, if a solution aligns with a manager's beliefs, they're more likely to accept it.

Status and Expertise

You're familiar with the saying that a fresh perspective on a problem can lead to better solutions, right? However, we often depend on the opinions of more experienced individuals and tend to trust them more. In addition, experienced engineers usually hold higher positions within an organization, making it even harder to challenge their opinions.

A couple of biases are playing a big role here.

Expertise Bias - Managers might rely on expert advice, and experts may favor complex solutions that showcase their knowledge and expertise.

Status Quo Bias - There can be a preference for maintaining the status quo, where existing complex solutions are seen as safer or more reliable.

Remember that I mentioned that a Lack of Understanding and Trust can amplify the effects of other cognitive biases? I was talking about these two.

Starting from the Status Quo Bias. It is not a secret that breaking out of Status Quo and doing something potentially controversial, definitely requires deep understanding and trust in your people and the process. Well, if you are lacking both, you are stuck with what you have and stalling the progress.

The same applies to Expertise Bias. Without good understanding and trust in people and the process, all you have left with is reliance on the experts. And these, so called, experts want to show off, especially when they feel threatened by some newbie.

The engineers

Now let's discuss the engineers, those who solve the problems, and focus on what happens when their solutions are not accepted.

We've worked with numerous engineering teams that delivered elegantly simple solutions to complex problems. These engineers were initially thrilled with their accomplishments. However, their enthusiasm quickly turned into frustration, leading to a collapse in their belief in systematic problem-solving as a concept.

This prompted us to invest time into understanding the cause of this issue. I'd like to share our findings here.

Our findings indicate that engineers' frustration is less related to cognitive biases than we initially thought. It seems to be primarily about expectations, delivered value, and managerial recognition.

Consider this: an engineer invests time and resources to solve a problem and devises a simple solution. When presenting it to the manager, the engineer must also justify the time spent, especially if the solution appears straightforward. Consequently, the solution's value is overshadowed, and the engineer finds themselves having to defend their work to management.

Expectation vs. Reality

The expectation often is to find simple solutions quickly. However, the reality is that problem-solving is a complex cognitive process that requires time and resources. The complexity of a solution doesn't necessarily correlate with the effort invested in finding it.

Experience indicates that rapidly found solutions are typically more complex. They result in more intricate systems and frequently generate additional problems.

Moreover, uncovering a simple solution may cause engineers to question their initial approach and judgment, leading to self-doubt and frustration. In reality, discovering a simple solution is an art, and it should be treated as such.

Professional Pride and Recognition

We observed that engineers take great pride in their discoveries. However, this pride often diminishes when they present their solutions to management, mainly due to a discrepancy between expectations and reality.

Perceived value also plays a significant role. Engineers take pride in their ability to solve challenging problems, but a simple solution might seem to undermine their professional skills and expertise, an idea that I completely disagree with.

All of the above and many other reasons, make the very best engineers stay in the shadows.

The Punchline

Over the last couple of decades, the engineering community has been conditioned to prioritize speed of execution over process and quality, even if the result is far from perfect. We got used to the fact that for the most part, we get stuff done with a push of a button. Look at ChatGPT as an example, we are achieving somewhat decent results very fast, and nobody cares about how much effort has gone into creating the tech behind ChatGPT.

The concept of "move fast and break things" has often been taken too literally. The only reason this approach works is that mistakes in software are typically cheap and correcting them is relatively cheap, except the cases when it is not . Companies collapse all the time because of that, but we don’t care because we’ve been trained to fail fast and iterate. The only problem is that this concept simply does not work with the exception of an early startup environment, or if the company has enough money to handle it.

We stopped valuing cognitive effort, instead focusing on speed. Professionalism is no longer important, thinking is no longer important, and we completely lost the value of education. We prefer to hire 15 cheap coders out of a 3-month boot camp, instead of just a couple of strong highly paid engineers who can actually solve problems. We stopped asking questions and were scared to say that we didn’t know. And at the same time, we are frustrated when we drown in our own problems.

Just like the collapsing companies, we are failing as a society, and we starting to see it more prominent. And all of this is because we value the wrong things. We have to fix it, and we have to do it fast. The change must start with the leadership in the industry and education system.

That's all, folks. Here's some food for thought.

Special thanks

Lately, I have written a lot about the relationship between the problem-solving and cognitive biases, here on LinkedIn and in our company blog . Although I was aware of cognitive biases, I only recently understood their significant role as barriers to effective problem-solving. For that, I wanted to give my special thanks to Richard Platt who opened my eyes to this concept while we worked together and discussed this painful issue that the engineering community is now facing.