Too many organisations, teams and individuals make things unnecessarily complicated. For example:

• They write 100-page business cases to justify projects to themselves

• Then they produce 50-page powerpoint presentations to summarise the same business case

• They write multi-paragraph emails to one person and copy many others in

• They hold pre-meeting meetings

• They create acronyms that no one understands

• They produce reports that no one reads

• They implement methods that add no value to the way they work

• They rollout technology that doesn’t improve collaboration or allow for older technology to be retired

• They create roles for people they don’t know what to do with

• They promote people to senior management positions with no people skills and then don’t educate them on how to become leaders

• They create processes that stand in the way of removing people that hold the culture back or that undermine the safety of others

• They send people on training programs to learn skills they’re never given the chance to use

• They always plan to do more than they have the capacity to achieve

• They take six months to hire someone that they need right now

• They start projects without planning them first

• They waste money by printing ‘packs’ of information

• They use 1000 words to say something that requires only 250.

This blog is no different. How many words does it really take for me to tell you to stop overcomplicating work?

A lack of productive time is an issue that many people face on a daily basis that could be easily resolved with a few conversations, a few decisions, a few process changes and a few habit tweaks.

Yes, simplification requires a little more thought and effort and a dash of ruthlessness, but as Steve Jobs once said, ‘...it’s worth it, because when you get there you can move mountains.’

Most people are still stuck climbing those mountains and may never see the top.