Seven years ago, in the first of almost 100 articles for this newsletter, I wrote of the modern complexities surrounding the once simple task of packing an overnight bag for a business trip. I noted that I often spend “more time making sure I have a full set of batteries and power cords than I do making sure I have enough clothes”.
This, I suggested, was an example of a broader complexity we are faced with in our lives, particularly our working lives. “Modern evolution almost requires complexity as a matter of course.” Feedback from many of you over the years has reinforced that I wasn’t alone with these thoughts.
Has anything changed? That depends on your point of view.
On a macro level, our world does seem to have become more complex. Certainly not less. Surveys suggest that workplace stress levels are high and that working hours are long. Email has become more of a burden than a tool. Customers are tired of dealing with companies who bark but don’t bite when it comes to making service simple.
Global markets create opportunity but complicate commerce. In response, governments lay on the laws while businesses battle for their slice of the pie by offering more and more choice. Notice how the typical market response to climate change is simply to extend the range with a ‘green’ product. ‘Carbon neutral’ beer is one of the more bizarre.
The reality is that this societal complexity is not going to go away. It has, in fact, always been with us. All that changes is its form and context. Way back in 1889, poet Banjo Paterson wrote, in Clancy of the Overflow:
“… the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.”
Sound familiar? And he didn’t have to deal with traffic congestion or email or 35 varieties of yoghurt.
Despite all this, a degree of simplicity is still possible at a more micro level – at the level of you and I and the organisations we work in. The trick, as I alluded to in another article, is to avoid fighting against the wind and waves and, instead, to control your own boat as best you can.
Put another way, if your business, your work or even your life is more complex than you would like, there is little point blaming the market, or the times, or the technology. There is even less point waiting for these things to change. Rather than trying to avoid complexity, we need to come to terms with it. To adapt to it. To find, each of us, our own way of steering through it.
In the end, it’s about the choices we make. We can let the waves of complexity break over us, or we can turn around and catch a ride with them. The latter takes a bit of effort but is ultimately much more rewarding.
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I've been work- ing in business, one way or another, for the last 20 years, and writing for the last ten. My main interest now is to get messages across - yours and mine - in a readable and approachable fashion. 
