by Rick Baker
On Dec 30, 2010
Maybe, your plate is too full.
On top of having a too-full plate, you may be missing the forest because of the trees.
Those idioms exist for good reason…I mean, where there is smoke there is fire.
Questions: How do people’s plates get too full? Why do people miss the forest because of the trees?
Answer: Because people often do not Seek Simple.
There are several ways to
Seek Simple:
- We can look for the essence of the thing at hand…we can do that by peeling off the layers of complexity until we approach ‘the essence’. For example: at our home we have a white, four-legged, domesticated mammal, which others [not so close to the trees] would call a dog.
- We can pay attention to our intuition, like Obvious Adams1. When our gut feel says this or that we can accept that our gut feel is often able to help us.
- We can strip away complexity…when stuff doesn’t make sense we can assume it is mumbo jumbo until someone proves it is not.
- We can do a good job of delegating.
- There are many other ways to Seek Simple.
As we peel off and strip away layers of complexity…we are subtracting.
Subtracting is one key way to Seek Simple.
And subtracting provides several benefits, including:
- Subtracting is one way to initiate the Creative process. The ‘look for the essence’ point above is actually a step recommended by creative-thinking experts. When we know the essence we can begin to use creative-thinking processes. It is not the only way to go about a program for creative thinking…but, it is one way that works.
- Subtracting is a key to good communication. For example, it is key to marketing messages. Chip and Dan Heath2 provide tremendous advice in their books Made to Stick and Switch. Here is a link to a Thought Post that provides an introduction to the Heaths’ views.
- Subtracting is a key to problem solving. Remove the chaff so you can see the wheat of the problem. As you remove the chaff good solutions will jump out at you. Here is a Thought Post on problem solving.
- Subtracting also works in mathematics. In fact, it is one of the first mathematics functions we learn. When we want people to understand us we must build our messages, from arithmetic to algebra to calculus. We can not assume people follow our jargon or our complicated spreadsheets or our complicated charts. We need to start with subtracting.