Simple

Border Collies catch Frisbees better than people.

 

It seems that dogs, by necessity, have to keep Frisbee-catching, simple.

If administrators were asked to catch a Frisbee, they would create long equations related to wind speed and Frisbee rotation.

Now these declarations did not come from any Frisbee association.

“The Dog and the Frisbee” was the title of a speech given by financial stability regulators from the Bank of England this summer. The Federal Reserve’s annual policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming featured authors Haldane and Madouros who made a simple statement about financial stability:

“As regulation has become more complex, it has also become less effective.”

Statistical regulations are so complicated that few can even understand them, much less evaluate whether a bank is fiscally sound.

Simply put, multiplying rules is a detriment to mission.

Now don’t get me wrong: we all need rules. But too many rules ruin the work.

BUT . . .

• Anyone who has taken a speech class knows the classic line, KISS “Keep it simple, stupid.”
• Anyone who writes knows that fewer words, shorter words, simpler words, are best.
• Anyone who teaches knows instruction moves from simple to complex. 
• Anyone who observes knows “it’s as plain as the nose on your face.” 
• Anyone who decorates knows “less is more.” 

And Steve Jobs is not just anyone.

“Keep It Simple” was Job’s motto.

Walter Isaacson explains the case for simplicity in the September issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

Simplicity is not just how something looks, an uncluttered room, or someone’s concept of minimalism.

“Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them.”

Jobs knew when we use a gadget, we don’t want to figure it out before we use it. The gadget can’t be smarter than us. If the gadget is smarter than us, we won’t use it.

So when Jobs was designing Mac computers he would say “we have to make things intuitively obvious.”

If people don’t understand it, they won’t use it.

Multiplying rules is a detriment to mission.

Now anyone who owns a home or runs a company knows obvious truths:

1. You can’t spend more than you have.

2. We want things to run smoothly.

3. Scheduled maintenance makes life easier.

We like things obvious, we need to make things simple.

So why do politicians want to make life hard by creating 2,000 pages of regulations for health care?

Why do bureaucracies take so long to accomplish simple tasks?

Why do companies create layer-upon-layer of administrative positions?

Multiplying rules is a detriment to mission.

This, by the way, is the reason we like “1-click” purchasing from Amazon.

When I was eight years old, I learned to drive a tractor. The tractor company was called “Simplicity.” It was basic. An H-box transmission, a clutch, a brake, a throttle, and a steering wheel controlled a half-ton tractor. You need to mow 2 acres of grass? You need a simple tractor.

Multiplying rules is a detriment to mission.

You know what suffers when things aren’t simple? People and their work.

People and their work suffer from over-regulation from government, banks, bosses, and rules in general.

We should make peoples’ lives easier because multiplying rules is a detriment to mission. 

We need to be more like the Border Collie when it comes to rules:

There is the Frisbee. Go catch it.

Mark hopes for a day when leaders at every level will reduce themselves, their expenses, their perks, and the number of their assistants to make things more simple. Mark works without an assistant but gets assistance at Crossroads Bible College, as a professor who also does administration.