Simplicity
We’re awash with motivational messages for 2022, aren’t we?
Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn feeds are full of “smash it” messages; one suggests a different book to read every day (!) in January in order to become rich beyond your dreams, more beautiful, more entrepreneurial, more….
…it’s exhausting.
I’ve long suggested that one key element of adept leadership is the ability to simplify for your teams, for your entire organisation.
Organisations, as we know, are imperfect things. Your people aim to make sense of the imperfection every day; they strive to achieve targets whilst cutting through the organisational noise and ambiguity.
We prize ability to deal with ambiguity, don't we? We work to create more resilient people.
The towering question remains: what if our organisations didn’t require people to be particularly resilient in the first place, if leaders worked hard to reduce ambiguity rather than marking people down for their confused inability to deal with it all. All that organisational interference which prevents people being at their best.
And so an idea, a plea even, to anyone who aspires to being a great leader:
Without affecting your desire for high performance, how do you create more focus and a higher level of simplicity for your people?
That headline plea, akin to “leader clearing the path”, prompts me to ask various questions (although, as ever, your own ideas are the best ones), four of which I share here:
How do you slash the number of communications your teams receive so they know that anything that does land in their inbox is important?
Which projects will you stop which don't really matter, or won’t have a particularly positive impact (yes…they exist)?
What will you do to reduce the burden of meetings and other habitual commitments?
What will it take to stop you trying to achieve too much in 2022; to achieve more by setting out with fewer priorities?
Perhaps the only resolution that matters for 2022: simplicity in everything you do, as a core principle.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication ”