I stood in the back and watched.
Across the break room, the CEO was standing next to a monitor, riffing on the numbers it displayed. Between us were rows of chairs, filled with my co-workers.
It was my company’s first big all-hands meeting since a Private Equity firm acquired it. The days of broad platitudes were over. The whole employee base was going to see the financial results each time we gathered.
Here’s our bookings, which is essentially revenue for the last month, the CEO exclaimed. And here’s our EBITDA, which is essentially accounting gobbledygook.
My eyes glared daggers across the room. Accounting gobbledygook?! EBITDA was so much more than that.
I was in business school at the time, working full-time and then heading to evening classes across town. The experience was a grind, but my mind was still sharp as a tack.
So, I quickly recalled what I’d learned in my Financial Accounting class the prior semester. Namely, that EBITDA was essentially profit – or a figure close to it.
That seemed like important information for my co-workers to know. For whether they worked in support, sales, or product development, that number mattered to them. If the company’s expenses outweighed its revenue for too long, it could become insolvent. And we could all lose our jobs.
This was a critical conclusion to illustrate. And yet, our CEO sidestepped the issue entirely. In one sentence, he focused on the unsightliness of the EBITDA acronym and stated that it was beyond our grasp.
What a way to miss the mark.
When I was young, browsing the Internet was an immersive experience.
I would sit down at my family’s desktop computer, which was hard-wired to a modem. I’d launch America Online, hearing iconic sound effects as the modem connected to the World Wide Web.
Soon, data would flow through the home’s landline and straight to the computer screen. The setup would make it impossible to use the home phone, in an era where mobile phones were rare. So, surfing the web was an escape from society – for the entire household.
Still, this escape was far from an oasis. The Internet data speeds were glacially slow back then. Web pages could take several minutes to load.
This whole clunky adventure sounds arcane in the modern era of technology. These days, you can quickly browse the Internet on a smartphone in the remote wilderness. Or you can put a headset on in your living room and imagine you’re in that same wilderness.
The steps that led to this technological innovation were nuanced. And yet, billions have been able to reap its rewards with ease.
Why is that?
I believe it has something to do with a 14th century principle called Occam’s Razor.
Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. It’s a precursor to the KISS method – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Technologists have followed Occam’s Razor for decades. The pioneers of the industry were problem solvers at heart, and they recognized that their solutions needed evangelism. If a problem was fixed but that fix was not widely adopted, it would remain a problem. And complexity was the bane of adoption.
So, each wave of innovation has followed a familiar pattern. The new ways make the old ones obsolete. But they they’re also easy for the masses to understand.
This premium on simplicity – on packaging up complex information in a widely understandable manner – is the hidden superpower of the tech industry. And yet, it rarely expands beyond the search bar of Google or the home screen of an iPhone.
In too many other industries, complexity is still the price of admission. And even within the tech industry, the push to make it simple is not absolute.
That comment in an all hands meeting about EBITDA being accounting gobbledygook? It took place at a tech company.
This duality is making a mess of us. And something’s got to give.
Tell me like I’m 5.
My colleague’s command rankled me.
Here I was, sitting in the producer’s chair in one of 800 TV newsrooms in America. I had the honor of conveying the major events of the day to 150,000 households across West Texas. But now, I was being asked to focus on the kindergartner-level viewers in the area.
Why was that?
My colleague explained that most people didn’t plan their day around my newscast. If they caught it at all, they were likely multitasking. Cooking, perhaps. Or changing out of their work clothes. Or wrangling their rambunctious kids running around the living room.
They were listening to our broadcast as much as anything else. And listening with one ear, at the end of a long day, with energy flagging. I had to meet them more than halfway to keep them from tuning me out entirely.
I nodded in understanding. And from then on, my newscasts looked different. Simpler. Plainspoken. And easier for a 5-year-old to understand.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this advice would come to define my life.
As I left the news media behind for a career in marketing, I found myself supporting industries I knew little about. First home remodeling. Then insurance.
The acronyms and jargon bandied about in fields put a wedge between me and the major players. They made it feel as if I was gathering information from the other side of a closed door.
My job was to get others to walk through that doorframe and into the room beyond it. But it would be hard to succeed if I was out in the cold with those I was recruiting. If I didn’t understand why the products I represented mattered, how could I explain that to the masses?
So, I went strove to make it simple. I learned all I could about my industry and my employer in the most straightforward terms. And then I conveyed that information in a way that just about anyone could understand.
This has worked wonders. I’ve made it easy for an inexperienced consumer to recognize what my employer’s solution can offer them. And I’ve made it just as easy for a relative at a holiday gathering to understand what I do for a living.
There are no prerequisites to information in my world. There is no room for pretense.
But in that sense, I stand alone far too often.
Check this out. An entry level job that requires three years of experience!
My friend beckoned me over to the laptop on the coffee table, hoping we’d find humor in the absurdity of it all. But as we stared at the job description on the screen, neither one of us was laughing.
There were enough acronyms to flummox the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. There were vague descriptions of arbitrary tasks. And there was that firm demand for 3 to 5 years of professional experience in the field. For an entry level job.
Good Lord! Was this employer trying to seal off the talent pipeline?
It made no sense to me then. But it does now.
The company who put out this misguided job ad had the same goal as millions of others. To make enough money to cover its costs and then some.
This meant catering its offerings to the masses. But not opening its doors to them.
Indeed, success in the ultra-competitive business world meant having the best talent in tow. And complexity was the measure separating the wheat from the chaff. Exclusivity was the name of the game – even at the lowest levels.
So, this company offered no quarter for on-the-job growth. It demanded three years’ experience just to get in the door.
This contradiction mirrors life itself. We rely on simplicity to reap the benefits of community. Yet, we also rely on complexity to make our mark in a crowded field.
Our minds can’t handle this polarization. So, we tend to focus on complexity, making our actions more and more exclusive. Until eventually, we miss the forest for the trees entirely.
What if we chose the other road? What if we shunned the illusion of the sophisticated elite, and yearned to make it simple?
A voice in our head might scoff at this idea, claiming it’s beneath us. But that voice betrays us.
A focus on simplicity has changed my life for the better. Not because I’m anyone special. But because the concept just makes sense.
It’s time for more of us to reap these rewards. To open our minds, our hearts, our spirits. To tell it like we’re 5.
Let’s get to it.