The K.I.S.S.S. Principle
Volume 12, Number 18
Issue 566
I try very hard in everything that I do to stay focused on the K.I.S.S.S. Principle--Keep It Simple Simple Simple. I’ve often said that it’s hard to soar with the eagles when you are stuck in pigeon goo, and some of the worst professional disasters that I’ve ever become entangled with come from getting bogged down with too much information. Usually, this was against my better judgment, but I did it anyway (usually forced into it) and then I suffered for it.
I’ve written previously about the problems with having “low visibility” and I will write in the future about trying to maintain an attitude of “just the facts ma’am,” but I want to talk a little, mostly in analogous terms, about receiving information.
The best professionals know that if you can’t explain something in fourth grade language, that you don’t know what you are talking about. Professionally, the use of too many words is almost always counterproductive. I’ve always had the goal of being able to explain something technical in two or three sentences if necessary--anything to anybody. To be able to do this, you have to know when to stop receiving information and process it into an initial conclusion. I do this fairly fast--I almost always have to cut people off so I can process what has been initially received. I want to receive a very limited amount of information so I can then form a preliminary conclusion.
Then, I take in a little more information--I open my ears again. Pause: Is my preliminary conclusion still valid? Then a little more. Still valid? I do this over and over and over within each problem that is presented. Instead of receiving a massive amount of information and then being too overloaded to process it all (confusion), I have gradually turned on all the lights in the panel box to obtain a fully-lit (informed) house. I’ve avoided circuit overloads and the journey to reach the final conclusion has been a lot more fun and both the client and I have formed fruitfully-developed multiple initial conclusions before agreeing on the final--the “best,” not necessarily the “correct”--solution.
Breaking the “receipt-of-information process” into multiple phases is important to being a good professional. Taking in only the basic information and forming an initial conclusion requires you to have your racehorse blinders on. Only view the limited focused goal of a straight line in front of you with a finish line at the end. Analyze related, but non-pertinent things around you, one-by-one-by-one. Know that they (tangentially-related problems) are there around you and consider them, but do not let them overwhelm your senses and make you turn away from the goal. Stay simplistically-focused on the goal of getting your customer to the finish line. A good professional is the thoroughbred racehorse whose reward is getting their jockey-client to the finish line.
I’ve often said that the best thing about being a good professional is the personal reward from facing the intellectual and, sometimes, physical challenges that problems create. The worst professionals don’t realize that we are in the problem solving business and that our fiduciary duty to the public (above all else) is problem solving in a solutions-oriented way. To do this, though, we have to be the Rock of Strength by staying focused on the big picture, not on minutia.
I’ve always thought that every problem has an unlimited number of solutions and that if you handle problems with a love of life, that you will put together the pieces of a problem like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and ultimately solve the problem, just like a jigsaw puzzle ultimately forms a picture.
One of the tools that I use to stay focused on the K.I.S.S.S. Principle is word association. To do this, I think that IF (big “if”) you could classify each type of person or problem into being one word out a pair of words that are antonyms, what would be the applicable word to the applicable diagnosis? Doing this gives great simplistic insight into how to use the platinum rule (treat people how they need to be treated) to successfully get along with that person while at the same time keeping you focused on assessing the problem at-hand and developing solutions and the strategies to obtain them.
Applying the K.I.S.S.S. Principle as a diagnostic took, I often think, “is this person/problem [a] _________” and then I choose. Here are some example pairs that I often use to categories people and problems: winner/loser, organized/scattered, simple/complex, clean/messy, complete/incomplete, cooperative/hostile, scientific/artsy, stoic/emotional, forgiving/hostile, skeptical/trusting, right/wrong, defined/unknown.
I have a couple of friends who swim in so much detail and so much crisis that they will never be successful. To them, everything is an emotional crisis of Biblical proportion. When they ask for my assistance, they are taken aback by my attempts to be overtly simplistic. Sometimes I get accused of being condescending when I am actually being telegraphic (like you are paying for each word). Other times, I get accused of not wanting to listen. Often, it is these situations that my next response--a simple solution to the problem that they thought was so unsolvable--that evokes an apology like a light switch going on. I take great pride in working through these situations with the K.I.S.S.S. Principle.
The best solution--and there are always many solutions but generally only one or two “best” to any problem--is always the most obvious one. It just takes an attitude of applying the K.I.S.S.S. Principle to staying focused on the goal of getting through it and it takes NOT being bogged-down in minutia to do it.
Soar with the eagles! Rise above the minutia of pigeon goo! Be a winner by having a simple, cooperative, forgiving and defined way of journeying through life!
David B. Robinson, CPA
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