Complexity is easy. Simple is hard.

How to use abstraction to scale your business

Complexity is easy. Simple is hard.

This hit home for me recently when a client said something that I thought was really insightful.

"Brad, we need our systems to be as simple as our business is complex."

But why is simple so hard?

It's because every single thing you do has the potential to add complexity to your business.

Every decision you make.
Every new person you hire.
Every new strategy you implement.
Every new system you put into place.

How those elements get added to the whole determines if you're building an infrastructure as strong as the pyramids or as fragile as a house of cards.

So how do you keep things simple when your business becomes more and more complex?

The answer is a technique I use with every project I work on: Abstraction.

Abstraction is taking a step back and generalizing details into their core elements.

For example, if a client tells me they want a better way to track customers and vendors and referral partners, I don't necessarily look at those as separate things. I look for commonalities, and I consider future possibilities. Might they want a way to manage other stakeholders in the future, like contractors or suppliers?

That process of generalization leads me to what they're really asking for: a way to track companies and people.

That’s abstraction.

Here’s another example. When a company has dozens of different processes for how to deliver every flavor of thing they sell, I look for high level patterns. Can we organize all of these small little steps into one consistent set of high-level stages? Even if there are important differences in the details, organizing those details in a consistent way will make it much easier to make changes and additions down the road.

That’s what scalability is all about, and having a mindset of abstraction will help you get there.

Your processes will be more efficient.
Your clients will have a more consistent experience.
Your business will be more agile and adaptable over time.

And yes, your business will be simpler.

But I want to know, are there areas of your business that feel so complex that it's hard to manage? How do you keep things simple as you grow? If these are questions that resonate, please get in touch. I’d love to help.