Years ago, at a session with the leadership team at Pearson, one of the participants showed a slide which read:
“It is not complicated. It is just hard.”
It is a good reminder that in many situations, common sense really ought to prevail. But as the saying goes, “common-sense ain’t common practice”, we often have a tendency to go for the complicated and/or complex. This might be due to our educational upbringing (“it can’t be right if it’s easy”), a sense of importance and value we get from devising something elaborate, or an insecurity around standing one’s ground based on a “simple” answer.
My invitation for you is to start with common sense. And only if you see it failing you, look for the more complex or complicated answer. You will be surprised who often the simplest explanation turns out to be the correct one.