Profound Simplicity

Diego Rodriguez of Metacool, my mentor in this
blogging madness, had an intriguing post recently about the power of
simplicity. Diego described the stunning simplicity with which Associate
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor described the ideas on the U.S.
Constitution. Diego’s post reminded me
of something that organizational theorist Karl Weick always talks about when he
describes the stages that people go through when they make sense of overwhelming
events or ideas. To quote Weick, “people
often go through at least three stages when they deal with the inexplicable:
superficial simplicity, confused complexity and profound simplicity.” Weick explains that our first reactions to
events or a body of knowledge is to develop dangerous oversimplification,
usually wrong and downright destructive. Then we face the difficult stage of realizing that we are
oversimplifying things, which means that we are flooded with confusion and develop
excessively complex ideas and solutions. After what can be years of struggle with the complexity, some people
develop the ability to identify and explain to others what really matters. 

Sandra Day O’Connor has reached this level of
wisdom with the law, as Diego shows, and it is sight to behold when it happens
– so long as you realize that there is also danger in listening to
such gifted people because they can make things that are very hard to learn look
very easy. Weick applies this
perspective in his lovely online essay Leadership
When Events Don’t Play By The Rules, but this is just one example, it can
be applied to almost any problem where there is overwhelming information or emotion.  Or if you want to go to the original source, see William
Schutz’s book Profound
Simplicity – which is out of print, but you can get used copies on
Amazon.