SECRET 13

Be Wary of Complexity

Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.

—“THE ADVENTURE OF THE ABBEY GRANGE”

 

 

 

 

 

Although he was a genius, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t perfect. Conan Doyle was careful to give his detective some all-too-human flaws that made the character more believable and multidimensional. In the end, though, Holmes’s recognition of his own flaws helped him become more self-aware and, by extension, a better detective.

Holmes craved challenges. He wasn’t interested in making an easy buck—in fact, easy cases bored him to tears. In “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,” Watson said that sending Holmes out on a simple case was like sending a highly trained medical specialist to diagnose a case of common measles. And in “The Adventure of the Priory School,” he made special note of Holmes’s “love of the complex and the unusual.”

But this desire for difficult cases could also cause problems. In “Abbey Grange,” Holmes told a Scotland Yard detective, “Perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand.” In other words, sometimes the solution to a problem might be rather simple, but since he enjoys difficult cases, he might subconsciously avoid that simple solution to feed his constant need for challenges. Holmes was smart enough to occasionally take a step back, evaluate his actions, and make sure he wasn’t falling into traps of his own devising.

Although we might not want to admit it, many of us—especially those who have a lot of experience in a certain field—have the same problem as Holmes. When faced with a difficult situation, we often come up with overly complex solutions and shy away from simple fixes. Why? Sometimes it’s just plain ego: “I’m smart, therefore I should come up with an ingenious and unique solution that no one has ever thought of before.” Unfortunately, ingenious and unique often translates into “needlessly complex” and “almost impossible to understand.”

At other times, we veer toward the complex solution because we simply want to impress someone else. If your supervisor gives you a task to complete, you have an opportunity to prove your worth to the company and separate yourself from the pack. What better way to do that than whip up a thirty-minute PowerPoint presentation, complete with a dozen charts and graphs? Or if someone asks you for advice, rather than give him a simple answer, you drone on for fifteen minutes so he knows how well-informed you are.

Some of the greatest minds in engineering and software have faced similar temptations over the years. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, the legendary aircraft engineer who headed up the Lockheed Skunk Works program, which produced dozens of high-tech, top-secret planes for the U.S. military, is perhaps best known for coming up with the KISS Principle, which stands for “Keep it simple, stupid.” That simple four-word phrase was the guiding principle behind the creation of some of the world’s most advanced flight and weapons systems. The idea was to keep the design of the plane as simple, efficient, and practical as possible so that when something went wrong, it could be found and fixed quickly and easily.

However, valuing the simple over the complex isn’t a new idea; it goes back centuries. In fact, the most famous Holmes quote of all from The Sign of Four—“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”—hearkens back to this idea. If you’re having trouble implementing your success strategy, or don’t feel that you’re getting any closer to your ultimate goal, it might be a good idea to evaluate your methods. Is your game plan too complicated? Are you trying to do too much too soon? Are you overanalyzing what it takes to achieve the results you want?

Experienced salespeople—even those who sell complex, high-dollar products like software systems or robotic arms—learn how to boil down the essence of their offerings into what’s known as an “elevator pitch.” The idea is to come up with a simple, quick, and accurate description of the product you’re selling, a pitch that you can complete in the span of a short elevator ride with a prospective client. This forces you to focus on the core value that the product provides and what sets it apart from the competition. The elevator pitch is KISS in action. Holmes would certainly approve!