Contrary to what you might have heard, complexity should never be the goal. Making things simpler is more challenging than making them complex. Complexity and be created from simplicity but simplicity never comes from complexity.
The Cambrian Explosion
This term describes the period when practically all of the major animal phyla (the fancy scientific name for the grouping of animals based on general body plans) started appearing.
Before the Cambrian Explosion, most organisms were relatively simple. There were single-cell or small multicellular organisms. Sometimes, they were organised into colonies.
Then the explosion happened and the rate of diversification increased. The variety and complexity of life dramatically changed, based on the simple models they started with and began to look like what life looks like around us today.
The Visa Shuffle
Just a mere 500 million years later in 1966, Dee Hock was hired by the National Bank of Commerce, who were trying to get their National BankAmericard credit cards to work.
Hock didn’t agree with the traditional way that management was set up in hierarchies. He wanted input from the bottom up. He saw the coming technological revolution and helped turn the National BankAMericards into VISA.
He introduced the term Charodic. A management concept to balance chaos and order. This worked when he was managing member banks who were both competing against other banks for business but had to cooperate with each other to have VISA work effectively.
Hock Built a deliberately decentralised organization, using his idea of chaordic. He believed that simple rules allow for emergent behaviours
A famous quote from Hock was “Simple clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behaviour. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behaviour.”
Make It Simple
You don’t have to make your processes complicated or confusing. In fact, that is the worse thing you can do, unless you want to micromanage everything.
What you need to do to make a vivid and interesting environment is to make the rules simple and clear. You might need a lot of rules, you might only need a few rules, but you should have as many or as few rules as you need to keep things clear and simple.
These rules will allow people to operate independently and react/create creatively to come up with nuanced and complex ways to approach the world.
Simple rules treat people like they are smart and capable because that is why you hired them. Complicated rules treat people like they are children, so why are you hiring them?
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 