How to simplify in a complicated world

Have you heard of the term “wicked problem”? First proposed by planning engineers Horst Rittell and Melville Webber to differentiate between ‘tame’ problems – which could be resolved using standard scientific techniques – and complex, policy-based problems – which were neither simply nor completely resolvable – wicked problems have many causes, don’t have one right answer, and are often are difficult to even describe.

How to end hunger. How to transition to clean energy. How to build sustainable cities. How to ensure equitable access to clean water, healthcare, education, and housing. How to achieve gender equality. How to end trafficking, exploitation, and slavery. How to reduce and reverse the effects of human-caused climate change.

These are all wicked problems – and these and more are what most of my clients and colleagues have dedicated their working lives to try and solve

So we wake up every day and work to solve potentially unsolvable problems. Because there is no end in sight, there is always more to do, and so we do more. More and more and more. Tasks pile up, initiatives add on, we measure, we report, we connect, and the list of things to do grows longer and our aims grow more complex. And we get tired – are tired – and yet we continue to do more.

But over the last few months, I’ve been leaning into something that I’ve committed to bringing with me into 2026 – a lens to see things through; an option: to simplify

Simplify, as defined in Webster’s 1913 Dictionary is to make simple; to make less complex; to make clear by giving the explanation for; to show an easier or shorter process for doing or making.

As my favorite composer, Chopin, said, “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

What simplicity is not

Simple does not mean sloppy

It’s not cutting corners, taking the easy route, or compromising your standards. Like Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.”

Simple is not always speedy

As this (long) quote from Marcus Aurelius says, “Do nothing but what is necessary…By this rule a man has the double pleasure of making his actions good and few into the bargain. For the greater part of what we say and do, being unnecessary, if this were but taken away, we should have both more leisure and less disturbance. And therefore before a man sets forward, he should ask himself this question, “Am I not upon the verge of something unnecessary?”

Simplicity does not mean scarcity

While abundance is a bit of a buzzword at the moment, and it is the opposite of scarcity, it’s important to note that simplicity and scarcity are not synonymous (just like “abundance” and “growth” should not be synonymous). Looking to Webster’s 1913 Dictionary again, abundance is defined as, an overflowing fullness; ample sufficiency; great plenty; profusion; copious supply; superfluity; wealth: – strictly applicable to quantity only, but sometimes used of number. If we seek only to overflow in response to scarcity, might we be asking for a mess? Like Coco Chanel said, “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”

So if you’re in the business of trying to solve the world’s most wicked problems, as many of my clients and colleagues are, what are you supposed to do?

I’m not saying our wicked problems can (simply) be simplified. I do not present this as a choice – between easy or hard, simple or complex, wicked or tame – but an invitation.

An opportunity to get curious and ask, “Where might I be able to simplify?”

Not with the aim of finding a simple solution or forcing a wicked problem into a simple box, but to notice what else is in your power to simplify. What about this could be simplified?

To pause. To ask, “Am I not upon the verge of something unnecessary?”

So that we can do the most necessary things instead.

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