If It’s Not Simple, It's…

Pascal Dennis, author of Getting the Right Things Done

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, "any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he's doing is a charlatan." This principle is especially true in Strategy execution, where human leadership & charisma cannot be replaced. In fact, it is my strong belief that in the age of AI, these will comprise the essential, irreplaceable app.

AI agents will eventually be able to handle many jobs, but can they define, deploy & execute Strategy? Can AI agents define Purpose in a transcendent way, such that gifted team members embrace it, and put their differences aside for a great goal? Can AI agents motivate a team to sustain its heart & fighting spirit in the face of inevitable setbacks, to keep going in spite of everything? (To be sure, the teams of the future will comprise both human and AI agents.)

"What are we trying to achieve? “How will we win - what is the logic?" In Strategy sessions, I`m a proverbial broken record. We've been taught that complexity is profound. In fact, complexity is a crude state. Simplicity marks the end of a process of refining.

The late great physicist, Richard Feynman, looked and talked like a New York City cabbie. His Caltech freshmen lectures in Physics, and all his books are classics for their simplicity & humor. How did Feynman achieve that level of clarity? Through slow, patient reflection, by turning a problem over and over in his mind until a 'simple' explanation suggested itself. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, and is a process of refinement.

© 2025 Lean Pathways Inc.

In our frantic, time-starved age, that's where the shoe pinches, no? These days, who has time to turn a problem over and over in their mind? Who has the time, as Einstein did, to imagine himself riding a light beam - so as to makes sense of time and gravity and light?

Which invokes the second great law of strategy: Less is more. Knowing we'll be time-starved, please let's not over-fill our strategy plates, like teenagers at a buffet. "First we'll do this, then this and this and that over there. Oh, and then we'll..."

Design Thinking & Lean Experimentation, core Innovation methodologies, force you to simplify and clarify your offering. Once we’ve answered a series of core questions around the customer, we work our way up the ‘hockey stick’ by defining & validating a series of ‘minimal’ offerings.

Similarly, in strategy, we want to define, deploy & validate our 'minimum viable plan', monitoring what happens, and adjusting as the inevitable 'known, and unknown, unknowns' arise.

Breakthrough entails walking up the stairs in the fog, continually making & easy quick experiments, most of them yielding a negative result. If it’s not simple, it’s BS.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis

E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

PS To learn more about my Strategy Execution program, Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World, feel free to drop me a line.




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds, Part 2
Igniting New Growth – Aristotle’s Two Worlds
Innovation Does Not Begin with Technology
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World

If It’s Not Simple, It's BS

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, "any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he's doing is a charlatan." This principle is especially true in strategy, perhaps our most human management activity.

Artificial Intelligence & Robotics can eventually handle many jobs, but can they make & deploy strategy? Can they motivate a team to be better than it's parts, to rise together in some great endeavor?

"How will you win? What is the logic?" I`m a proverbial broken record in strategy sessions. It's remarkable how difficult we find these questions. We've been taught that complexity is profound. In fact, it's a crude state. Simplicity, by contrast, marks the end of a process of refining.

The late great physicist, Richard Feynman looked and talked like a New York City cabbie. His Caltech freshmen lectures in Physics, and all his books are classics for their simplicity & humor.

How did Feynman achieve that level of clarity? Through slow, patient reflection, by turning a problem over and over in his mind until a 'simple' explanation suggested itself.

And that's where the shoe pinches in our time-starved era. Who has time to turn a problem over and over in their mind these days? Who has the time, as Einstein did, to imagine himself riding a light beam - so as to makes sense of time and gravity and light?

Which invokes the second great law of strategy: less is more.

Knowing we'll be time-starved, please let's not over-fill our strategy plates, like teenagers at a buffet. "First we'll do this, then this and this and that over there. Oh, and then we'll..."

One of the many benefits of Lean Start-up and Design Thinking is that they force you to simplify and clarify your offering. We test our 'Minimum Viable Product', on the way to our 'Minimum Viable Company'.

Similarly, in strategy, we want to deploy our 'minimum viable plan', watching carefully what happens, and ever ready to adjust to the inevitable 'known, and unknown, unknowns' that confront us.

Breakthrough entails walking up the stairs in the fog, continually making & easy quick experiments, most of them yielding a negative result.

Best wishes,

Pascal