Simplicity Outpaces Complexity

Simplicity Outpaces Complexity

Why Rigid Processes Undermine Value

Ever noticed how systems meant to help people often end up doing the opposite? You see it in government all the time sprawling structures trying to solve one thing but complicating ten others. But the same problem crops up inside businesses, and the results are just as messy.

Not messy like a missed deadline. Messy like a customer who quietly stops coming back. Or a great team member who gives up trying to improve things because “it’s just how we do it now.

The Illusion of Control

Most businesses don’t build processes to help customers. They build them to protect themselves from risk, from complaints, from variability. These systems can be neat on the surface, but underneath they often do more harm than good.

They remove the authority and with it, the confidence of the people closest to the customer. They reduce flexibility in favour of uniformity. And eventually, they prioritise internal efficiency over external experience. That’s when the rot sets in.

Standardising Complexity ≠ Simplifying It

A common mistake is trying to manage complexity by turning it into a process map. But standardising complexity isn’t the same as simplifying it. In fact, it often makes things worse, creating rigid steps for situations that actually need nuance and care.

You might get consistency. But you’ll lose connection. And when things don’t fit the system? People feel they’re failing, or worse, they give up.

Where Things Start to Break

Processes often come from good intentions: reduce errors, ensure compliance, scale faster. But over time, they harden. They become doctrine. And slowly, the process becomes more important than the outcome.

The result?

• Decisions are delayed
• Exceptions are discouraged
• Customer loyalty quietly erodes

The business feels “busy” but struggles to grow meaningfully.

Simplicity Isn’t About Cutting Corners

It’s about clarity. It’s about removing noise between the customer need and the business response. Startups understand this instinctively, because complexity is a luxury they can’t afford. They stay close to the value and ruthlessly strip out what doesn’t serve it.

Ironically, simplicity is also what enables growth. It scales better. It adapts faster. It invites creativity, not just compliance.

The Real Cost of Complexity?

It’s not process inefficiency. It’s missed moments.

The moment a customer needed help and got a generic holding email.
The moment a team member saw an opportunity but couldn’t get it through “the system.”
The moment something was fixable, but wasn’t, because no one was “allowed” to act.

What to Do Instead

Trust your people more than your process.
Build systems that guide, not govern.
Start with what matters and test for where friction creeps in.

Ask yourself:

• Does this make life easier for the customer or just for us?
• Are we simplifying the path or just hiding it behind templates?

Because customers don’t care about your internal processes. They care about outcomes and those come from people, not flowcharts.

At Thinking in Fields, we often talk about helping businesses move from the tangled forest to a cultivated field. Rigid systems are the overgrowth. They clutter the path and slow you down. True simplicity is like clearing the field so your teams can focus on planting the right seeds, in the right soil, at the right time. That’s where value grows, not from adding steps, but from removing what no longer serves