The urge for simplicity
Recently this is a topic all around me. At work, at home, in the news.
The world has become a complex place. Well it always was, but as we stand on the shoulders of giants, we are able to understand more and more of it now. This requires more knowledge than anyone is able to gain in a lifetime. This is overwhelming.
We want more simplicity in life. People want simple solutions. Simple solution meaning that it’s easy to understand. (Nearly) everybody can understand the solution. Just do A and B will happen.
Guess what, there are no simple solutions. The world is utterly complex. It becomes more complex by the second. Still we urge for simplicity. We want to get back into control.
Do you remember times when things were more binary? It was easy to differentiate A and B, ally and enemy, good and bad. Choices were limited.
I remember a time when the car manufacturer nearby produced about 4 models. Now they produce over 20 different models.
When I was in the air force boot camp they taught us about good land and bad land. These days there’s still a few (very) bad countries left. And evenly problematic there are now hundreds of militia, terror organizations, drug lords, crazy billionaires and what not.
Laws and regulations, standards and norms, all add rules, requirements and prerequisites by the truck load. Filing taxes, producing crops or installing a solar power plant on your balcony.
There’s also positive enrichment of former binary fields. Gender, sexual orientation, and all the connected topics. While there were always people somewhere between or outside of A and B, there’s now more awareness and in many countries also the possibility to identify in a more specific non-binary way. But guess what, that also adds complexity, because for many people the simple two-box world has become a spectrum that is too complicated for them.
When I look into my field of IT, which is currently in the context of a medical device as software, that is regulated by a set of standards. There are dozens and dozens of rules to follow, which makes processes convoluted and complicated. The rules all make sense, don’t get me wrong. They are there to protect the health and safety of patients. But people (the ones in IT) want simplicity.
But what does simplicity mean in that case? A strict rule to follow? Do A and B will happen? Or a simple flow of do A, then B, then C?
We had this issue in one of the first posts of this burst of blog posts with the ant hill. There are only a few simple rules that scouts and workers follow. The amount of actors in the system makes it look complex, yet structured. In our case, we have lots of rules. Some of those can be simple. There are so many rules and a medium amount of actors, which makes it complex and you loose the structure and overview.
Sometimes simplicity is actually seen as freedom of boundaries. Less explicit steps in a process, more choices to select from, or binary systems. With less boundaries comes responsibility for the individual to learn and know about all the connections and effects that decisions will have.
I don’t really know where I want to go with this post, but I know, things are not simple anymore. Systems Thinking helps to understand the world around you better, make better decisions, and understand consequences of decisions. If you look for something simple, it probably looks different than you think.
When we look at politics; the big economic problems of our times have reached a complexity that has not been seen before. In times where things happen so fast. Politicians and leaders that promise you simple solutions to these problems that fit into 1-2 sentences or the headline of popular newspapers are not worth anything. Politicians who understand problems will need time to explain their solutions. People will stop listening, because it’s too complicated. It’s not only the young generation that has a short attention span. Look at the generations 40+ and how they react to longer explanations. Most just loose interest and attention, as they cannot follow longer explanations. So they vote for the people with simple solutions, only to find out, that the simple solutions don’t work. And then it’s the fault of the others, yada yada yada. Sorry, this drifted into a political rant.
If you want to make your life simpler, practice systems thinking, and it will become easier to understand relations and dependencies. You will spot motivations, rules and boundaries faster. The world is complex, but it will be easier for you to understand.
