Complications by Nino Mihilli

I've Stopped Being Impressed by Complicated

The Longer I Build Businesses, the More I Respect People Who Can Make Difficult Things Simple

There was a time when complicated impressed me.

The sophisticated presentation.

The technical language.

The enormous spreadsheet.

The fifty-page plan.

The system with a hundred features.

The person who could use terminology nobody else in the room understood.

Complicated looked intelligent.

Experience has changed my perspective.

Today, when someone can take something genuinely difficult and make it understandable, I pay attention.

Because I've learned:

Making something complicated is usually easy. Making it simple is hard.

Complexity Can Hide Weak Thinking

Sometimes complicated language is necessary.

Certain subjects really are technical.

Finance can be technical.

Law can be technical.

Software can be technical.

Medicine can be technical.

There are concepts that shouldn't be oversimplified.

But sometimes complexity is camouflage.

Someone doesn't completely understand the idea, so they hide behind terminology.

The explanation gets longer.

More acronyms appear.

Another chart gets added.

Nobody wants to admit they're confused.

Then everyone leaves the meeting without knowing what they're supposed to do.

That's not sophistication.

That's a communication failure.

If I Can't Explain It, I Probably Don't Understand It Well Enough

I've started using this as a test on myself.

Can I explain the idea in plain English?

What are we actually trying to accomplish?

Why does this matter?

What changes if we succeed?

What could go wrong?

Who's responsible?

What's the next step?

If I need twenty minutes just to explain what the problem is, maybe I haven't defined the problem clearly enough yet.

That doesn't mean the solution will always be simple.

But the objective usually should be.

Running a Business Makes You Appreciate Simple

In a business, complicated has a cost.

Every extra step has to be taught.

Remembered.

Performed.

Checked.

Managed.

And eventually corrected when somebody misses it.

One unnecessary step isn't a big deal.

Multiply it across hundreds of transactions, employees, customers, or weeks and suddenly it matters.

That's why I'm increasingly interested in removing steps.

Not adding them.

Staffing Is Full of Repetition

Flat Staffing has taught me this repeatedly.

A staffing operation involves a lot of moving pieces.

Workers.

Customers.

Schedules.

Hours.

Approvals.

Payroll.

Invoices.

Communication.

Compliance.

Changes.

Call-offs.

Replacements.

When the company was smaller, more of that could be handled manually.

As volume grows, repetition becomes the enemy.

A process that takes an extra five minutes doesn't sound important.

If it happens 100 times, that's more than eight hours.

Now it matters.

Simple isn't cosmetic.

Simple can become capacity.

Payroll Changed How I Think About Efficiency

Payroll is a good example.

When you have a large number of people working, the objective isn't to make the process look impressive.

The objective is straightforward:

Pay people correctly and on time.

Everything behind that may be complicated.

Hours need to be collected.

Checked.

Matched.

Approved.

Exceptions handled.

Errors caught.

But the complexity should live behind the scenes.

The person using the system shouldn't have to suffer because the underlying problem is difficult.

That's one of the biggest lessons technology has taught me.

Good Technology Hides Complexity

Think about the best technology you use.

You press a button.

Something happens.

Behind that button may be an extraordinary amount of engineering.

Servers.

Databases.

APIs.

Security.

Algorithms.

Networks.

Infrastructure.

But you don't see most of it.

You shouldn't have to.

That's good design.

The engineering can be complicated.

The experience should be simple.

I've become fascinated by that distinction.

AI Makes This Even More Important

Artificial intelligence is incredibly sophisticated.

The person using it doesn't need to understand every technical detail underneath it to benefit from it.

That's part of what makes the technology powerful.

You can ask a question in normal language.

You can explore an idea.

Analyze information.

Work through a problem.

Build something.

The interface can feel simple even though the technology behind it is anything but simple.

I think that principle will reshape a lot of business software.

People aren't