A former colleague of mine at McKinsey used to to classify people into two groups: simplifiers and complicators.
In most situations, simplifiers are effective … complicators are ineffectual and annoying.
Complicators cannot distinguish between the pertinent and the irrelevant.
Simplifiers know what’s essential and what’s extraneous. They have the ability to cut to the core of issues and communicate in clear, simple terms.
Here’s an example …
In this short video that’s been viraling, a college student explains the Federal budget and puts President Obama’s proposed budget cuts in context.
It’s a quick tutorial on the Federal budget … and a nice example of communicating effectively by simplifying.
Click pic or link below to view video
http://www.wimp.com/budgetcuts/
Thanks to JNH for feeding the lead.
The Homa Files 
April 16, 2010 at 8:22 am |
Professor,
We have to admit that the real world is complicated and that simplifying it can lead to distortion. Whatever the ideological or practical benefits of simplification that make a complicated factual realism not suited for argument and motivation, the flip side is that people who understand things mostly of the realm on simplification will likely ignore all the tradeoffs involved in the decision. Whether that is a good thing or not is up to everyone to answer. For instant decision making, possibly, but for engaging feedback and revising decision quality, I doubt it.
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