I bet that if you work at a company that has been in business for a while, some processes seem more complicated than they should be. Many of these processes were put in place to reduce risk and variability—but how do we know when things have become too complicated?
In The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph A. Tainter, the author explains that complexity grows in societies over time, consuming more and more resources and making them increasingly fragile. Eventually, a point is reached where no additional resources are available, and collapse follows. This same pattern can happen in companies.
The hard part is reducing complexity.
Complexity is usually introduced to solve problems. Removing it means accepting that some of those problems may return. This is often referred to as business risk: Is the organization willing to accept the possibility that an issue might occur? Doing so requires confident, reasonable leadership.
In many cases, complexity is added piece by piece without anyone stepping back to examine the organization as a whole.
Here are a few rules of thumb to slow the growth of complexity:
- Use the same process in many situations; avoid creating multiple ways to do the same thing.
- Never add complexity unless the return clearly exceeds its lifetime cost.
- Push decisions as close to the work as possible.
A final question to ask is: Can this business function without all this complexity? If this company disappeared tomorrow, would a replacement organization need the same level of complexity to serve the same purpose?