Thank You Captain Obvious

As financial advisors and leaders of small businesses, we are paid to think. We are paid to address complex situations with, at times, complex answers. Our industry is one where many smart people work. People who are happy to discuss betas, standard deviations, and Monte Carlo simulations.

For many of us, our right-fit client is someone who needs our help simplifying the complex. Taking their complex situation and stripping out the noise allowing them to gain greater confidence, clarity and direction in their lives.

I have been reading The Everything Store recently and one of the concepts has stuck with me: Don’t Skip Over the Obvious Answer, Even if it is Simple.

When Amazon began its journey to one of the world’s largest companies they struggled with shipping orders.  One of the original employees suggested that they add packaging tables for greater efficiency, and this helped tremendously. I can picture many of the smart minds in the firm locked up in a boardroom trying to address this problem, discussing Kazan or Six Sigma principles. I can see this employee walking into the room and saying, “You know what would really help us?  Tables to fill the orders on.”

Sometimes the issues we have the most frustration around can be handled best by taking a step back and getting back to the basics.