How to Be Successful Using Simplicity

The best business strategies are always simple:  bringing business to its core customers, deepening relationships with them and providing them only the products they want. Companies win when they focus on simplicity.

Complexity is the other opposite of simplicity, and as surprising as it may sound most Managers tend to like complexity rather than use simplicity as a strategy: most tend to extend product lines, look for marginal customers, new projects, different marketing methods, etc.

Now, to be fair, in any large company, as in the world at large, most things are not naturally simple. You have to make them simple.

Therefore, not everything can be made simple, but you can concentrate on the few important things where simplicity is most likely to make you and your company successful. Target the problems that you suspect will have simple solutions (the feasible ones).

Simplicity is a combination of art with cost reduction -  providing the most exciting product or service at the most affordable cost. Apple, for example, was so successful due to the concept of simplicity. Henry Ford did the same for cars, Eastman did it for photography.

Simplicity requires a deep understanding of a product’s core essence. At the hearth of simplicity lies accessibility.

The essence of simplification is grasping what is and what is not important in a complex picture – make it recognizable and easy to understand or use.

The mark of a great leader is someone who simplifies in such a way that his or her listeners grasp one powerful conclusion and then act on it.

In order to simplify a Manager has to:

• Focus
• Define the core essence of your business (product, customer, cost)
• Establish a simple goal at a time.
• Avoid distractions outside of the established goal
• Standardize
• Automatize
• Have people you can trust rather than processes to follow

Work Smarter Not Harder

Most Managers work over 60 hours per week while the few ones work the 40 weekly hours or even few hours less.    

Not in all cases, but in most cases, the latter ones tend to work smart rather than work hard, they guide themselves by the 80/20 principle – they award themselves a life while at the same time produce great results.

They usually do only what they enjoy doing and spend all their time in what they do best while at the same time are surrounded by people with various different qualifications which makes their team quite successful in business.

In summary, there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice to what orders should be given.

Laziness itself is not a virtue; it works well only when is complimented with high intelligence. The very highest-achieving managers usually possess a host of virtues such as thoughtfulness, originality and vision.

This type of Managers, place a very high value on their own time and having the freedom to think things through without being disturbed with tedious chores that many other Managers handle, to keenly demonstrate their competence.

Their brilliance gives them the confidence to be lazy, and their laziness gives them the freedom to find shortcuts to better results through less effort. They are usually selective and insightful at crucial decisions; they do not sweat about small stuff.

Odd title for sure, but it boils down to work smart rather than work hard.

Be Strategic to Surpass The Competition

Strategic Managers create value by re-imaging the industry, they come up with superior business models – by devising new ways of doing business. They provide unique products or services for which customers are happy to pay a premium, or they cut costs without reducing quality, or ideally, the do both: they sell for more and produce for less. 

Strategic Managers value thought above action, the never let action (or conformity) drive out thought. They think very hard on how to do more with less – strategic thinking. They usually don’t follow routines like most Managers tend to do. Strategic Managers are ambitious.

Strategic thinking is however only the first step that Strategic Managers take, due to the fact that Strategic Managers tend to be ambitious, the usually “force” themselves to commit to something unfamiliar with determination.

With those elements in place a Strategic Manager is usually able to create new or better business models - as long as it leads to higher prices and lower costs or a combination of both.  Innovative ideas are only good when producing the desired results.

Strategic Managers are usually:

• Highly collaborative
• They possess disciplined authenticity
• Their economic models work
• They appeal to customers in different and new ways