If Things Were Simpler

Sometimes, I look ahead and wonder what I’ll think about business in ten years?

Learning has a way of expanding your horizons and revealing options. Things that seemed simple as a neophyte become nuanced and complex.

However, mastery can have the opposite effect. Things become simple again. Lessons are embodied and all the complexities are reduced to streamlined principles and rules.

As an example, one of the ideas floating around in my head is that operating a business is as simple as amplification and reduction:

• You find things that are working well and try to amplify them.
• You find things that aren’t working well and try to eliminate them.

I suspect that these simple guidelines could take many businesses far- at least to an optimized version of their current situation.

If you had to hand over the business to your spouse while you descended into a coma for an unknown duration, what would be the guiding principles you’d give them?

If the business were re-conceived as a simpler model, what would be your E = MC²?

Featured image is Albert Einstein (left) and Charlie Chaplin at the Hollywood premiere of City Lights, January 1931. Just a few inches between a genius and fool. Used under public domain.