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“Clarity and simplicity are the antidotes to complexity and uncertainty.” – General George Casey

Do you know this quote by General George Casey?  General Casey served in the U.S. army his entire working life, most notably as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 2007 to 2011.  He had to deal with all kinds of complexity and uncertainty – complexity that would cost thousands of lives if he made a wrong decision.

Dealing with it over so many years it goes without saying that he knows a thing or two about the antidote to complexity and uncertainty, and that is Clarity and Simplicity.

Clarity and Simplicity

Just as his quote is clear, concise and simple, so are the actions he recommends.  But what does it mean to bring Clarity to your team?

Clarity means your team knows their objective.  They know the goal, and they know where they are heading.  Often a good leader will set these objectives collaboratively with their team, to help them to buy in to what needs to be done.  Clarity means making a plan, and knowing the steps to execute that plan.  When you have clarity on what needs to be done and how you are going to do it, there’s quite simply a much higher chance it will get done.

I have seen this personally happen time and time again across many different industries – from McDonald’s and the fast food industry to financial services, banking, trading and insurance, automotive and more.  The teams that are clear on their objectives and their plan, are the teams that win.

And what does it mean to bring simplicity to your team?

Simplicity means being able to reduce the steps to getting the outcome you want.  It means finding the lowest common denominator, the clearest path, the smoothest way forward.  Albert Einstein is credited with saying “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”  That means only someone who truly understands something can articulate it in simple terms – others will go on and on trying to convince everyone, including themselves.

So bring simplicity and clarity to your team – you will see their employee engagement soar and your productivity improve.

– David McLachlan

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