Why Great Managers Don't Oversimplify

Conventional wisdom suggests that great leaders are masters of simplification. They don't get bogged down in details, they aren't confused by complexities, they aren't torn by conflicting views. Instead, they size things up quickly, see right through the fog, delegate the details, and issue a clear, bold, straightforward decision.

I do agree that simplification can be a powerful tool, and that managers do often need to cut through confusion and disagreement, setting a clear path and leaving most details to subordinates. But sometimes I find that what gets lost in the push to simplify is the recognition that simplification can be taken way too far.

I would argue that the most effective leaders understand that simpler isn't always better. Instead, they look for the right balance of the simple and the more complicated. Doing so requires deconstructing what may appear a monolithic, chaotic or overwhelmingly complex picture into a manageable number of components that are contained and clear enough to be understood and weighed individually and against one another. In assessing or communicating, think of the leader's job as that of holding up a prism to a flood of white light in order to see the constituent colors that are critical to the light's make-up. Breaking it down in this way often can reveal hidden or unexpected elements. You don't need to see 200 shades of blue, but you ought to be able to see that blue is part of the picture. This fractionating approach can be used to better understand both problems and opportunities. It also leads to ways to effectively communicate challenges and decisions to others in the organization.

The challenge of finding the right level of detail comes up all the time in my business, which involves expanding U.S. healthcare into global markets. At the highest level, it's tempting to take a simplistic view: Bringing healthcare international opens up a new range of markets and opportunities, and since the demand is there, why not jump in and meet it?

And yet I've been in the field long enough to know that doing so is anything but a no-brainer. To put it simply: it's not simple. Everything from unpredictable local regulation to cultural differences to internal staff resistance can stand in the way, and there is an equally broad range of potential solutions and enablers at hand to address these issues. And I see these same sorts of nuances, traps, potential friction and buried gems hanging over every aspect of the healthcare industry, and in other industries as well. They all demand the top decision-maker's consideration.

In my own journey to becoming experienced in this field, I first failed to perceive the component complexities at all, and then when I started discovering them they felt overwhelming and baffling. It took time to find the right balance. I had to learn to see enough detail to be able to make good decisions, without becoming so encumbered in undelegated details that my organization's progress was impaired as I struggled to plow through them.

Here are some of techniques that have served me as a sort of prism for splitting challenges up into manageable components:

Balance different internal factions: For any given situation, you'll always find people in your organization who will tell you why you need to make a certain decision, and others who will try to push you to make a different one. Don't tune any of these groups out, but don't feel obligated to give them equal weight, either, nor to delve too deeply into their arguments.

See it from the outside in: It's relatively easy to find out what people in your own organization are thinking. But don't overlook what may prove to be the most important single component of your decision-making process: What your customers, suppliers, and other outside stakeholders think of your situation and possible decisions. Healthcare organizations often undertake ambitious expansion plans only to find out the hard way that local communities and regulators have their own ideas about how hospitals should or shouldn't expand.

See it at different resolutions: Don't assume details don't matter until you've made a point of at least sampling some of them with people in the know. But your bias should be toward leaving details to others, so that as soon as you get a sense that the details you're looking at could be handled by others without weakening your ability to make an effective decision, let them go. When considering a partnership or new service line, for example, you certainly wouldn't want to move ahead without having some sense of the impact on your costs, cash flow, personnel workloads and brand--but you probably don't need to personally analyze 20 different spreadsheets on each area, either.

Rotate the prism: When you look at a big decision framed as a question of risk, you might be pushed toward a cautious decision. If you frame it as a question of opportunity, you may end up feeling bolder. As a strain on your operations, you could see it more aversely, and as a gateway to additional opportunity, more rewardingly. You need to see it from all these points of view, and others.

Change assumptions: You can't make decisions without assumptions, starting with the assumption that a giant asteroid isn't hurtling toward the Earth, and moving down to assumptions about the global economy, local economies, politics, conflict, shifting market interests, currency values, inflation, and on and on, down to assumptions about what sort of mood your board will be in when they consider your proposals. Identify your assumptions and change them up to see how your decision process changes in response.

Think about what you're missing: Is a new competitor waiting in the wings? Is a partner getting ready to bail? Is your organization about to get a shot at an even better opportunity? Use some imagination. It could help you bulletproof your decision, or least build in some coping mechanisms and escape routes.

The idea that a leader could confront all these elements and quickly cut through it all with a master stroke of simplification is just wishful thinking. Yes, great leaders can and must simplify, but not by ignoring the complexities. They do it by understanding and appreciating them.

Once a leader wrestles these situational nuances and components into a decision, well, sure, then he or she can work to make it look as if it were a simple choice. After all, not all stakeholders want to know how tricky, messy and uncertain the process was. A simple-sounding plan can help inspire confidence. Just make sure your simple-sounding plan can handle the complexities.