How simplicity can thrive in a complex world

Earlier this month most of you completed your taxes.  Probably either you had someone else do it, or you spent hours navigating the complexity of the Federal tax code.  Perhaps that tax code is the apotheosis of complexity...with the possible exception of booking air travel. 

On the other hand, if we look at Silicon Valley, it’s filled with examples of companies that have figured out how to do a limited number of things, do them well and create minimal rules around it.

In between is the vast landscape of culture and business which is continuously tilting from one side or the other.  Always trying to find a footing that, in an increasingly complex world, makes their product or service or idea, simpler. Standing on the bridge of simplicity, particularly in the world of business has been Stanford Professor Kathleen Eisenhardt.  Her new book is Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World

My conversation with Kathleen Eisenhardt: