The management trainee had a dilemma. “I’m on amazing projects,” he told me, “But all of them together are too exhausting. I am invited into everything, but I end up overstretched and unable to deliver.”
I call this the high-performance dilemma: to maximize the contribution of young leaders, many companies end up diluting their impact. Imagine the depth and performance they would bring if they could focus only on a limited number of essential tasks. Complexity is everywhere, and it’s getting worse – resulting in lost productivity and employee disengagement. Performance declines as teams get bogged down by bureaucracy, constant coordination, confusing processes, and too many meetings.
Change is needed to keep your company healthy and people engaged. As a senior partner at BCG, Dean of the Global Leadership Institute at the World Economic Forum, and Professor of Strategy at IMD, as well as through client work, I have observed and studied a lot of unnecessary complexity. Here, I share seven stories and note that the causes of complexity are usually rooted in good intentions.
The CEO of a global industrial goods company constantly asked for more resources. “I’m frustrated that we always throw more people at our delays, yet things rarely improve,” he said. “Sometimes, I think it makes things worse.” He was onto something. The fix wasn’t larger teams; it was the right team – small, dedicated, and skilled.
In his book The Mythical Man-Month, Fred Brooks captured a timeless truth: adding more people to a delayed software project doesn’t accelerate progress; it slows it down. It seems counterintuitive – more people should mean faster work, right? But adding people means more onboarding, coordination, and involvement in every decision.
This isn’t just a tech problem. Across marketing, finance, and operations – you name it – adding people can backfire, resulting in confusion, delays, and employees stuck in too many meetings with unclear objectives. Amazon’s “two-pizza” rule applies: a team is too large if it needs more than two pizzas for lunch.
Focus on scope, not scale. A small, focused team with the right skills and dedicated time will consistently outperform a bigger one spread thinly. Instead of adding people, refine the scope and empower a core team. That’s where the actual results lie.
“Be intentional about reporting. Before requesting a report, ask if it’s genuinely needed and whether you will invest time using and acknowledging it.”
I once worked with the finance director of a large utility. We discovered that team members spent 95% of their time creating reports and 5% using them. The motivation behind the reporting overload made sense: transparency, insight, tracking, and progress. But in practice, it was an enormous waste of time, leading to disengagement and frustration. As one finance team member vented: “I spent my whole weekend writing this report. Monday comes around, and no one reads it, let alone gives feedback. What’s the point?”
Morale nosedives when employees feel their work goes unnoticed. One CEO who recognized the problem asked managers to request only those reports they needed. Her approach was straightforward: “If I can’t spend a minute giving you feedback or discussing the report’s impact, maybe we don’t need it.” She encouraged her teams to focus on the essential insights, which freed up time for strategy and meaningful analysis.
Good feedback tells a team member whether the report was helpful, what decisions it informed, and what could be improved. This acknowledgment drives motivation, engagement, and performance.
Be intentional about reporting. Before requesting a report, ask if it’s genuinely needed and whether you will invest time using and acknowledging it. If you’re not prepared to give feedback, reconsider whether the report is necessary.
Agility is everywhere. Everyone wants to be quick, adaptable, and ready to pivot. The concept is appealing – respond to change, learn fast, and adjust on the go. We create flexibility in areas that don’t need it. Sometimes, we know what needs to be done from the start.
In those cases, accurate upfront scoping – not agility – is the key to achieving high-quality outcomes. A young leader frustrated with her team’s declining quality of project outcomes told me: “We’re trying to be agile, but it feels like we’re just circling the priorities, never landing on them.” The team was too focused on agility. “Are you ensuring your team has clear guidance from the beginning?” I asked. “Or are they constantly having to guess what’s most important?”
Her team simply needed to work confidently from a well-laid plan. They became more engaged and performed better once she committed to giving clear, upfront guidance and introduced flexibility only where necessary.
Agility is valuable when the project’s goals aren’t clear from the outset. For instance, if you’re developing an innovative product in a rapidly changing market, an agile approach allows you to test ideas, collect customer feedback, and adjust without committing resources prematurely. However, when the goal is well-defined and stable, upfront planning leads to better results. In highly regulated industries like healthcare or manufacturing, for example, there’s little room for changing requirements on the fly.
A clear plan avoids unnecessary revisions and allows the team to focus entirely on execution. In such cases, “agility” can create chaos by encouraging unnecessary or inappropriate changes.
Don’t let agility replace good planning. Agility is powerful when navigating unknowns but is not a substitute for clarity. The real question is not, “How can we be agile?” but “Do we need agility here, or do we need scope specificity?” In projects with clear goals, upfront planning will consistently outperform agile methods.
Optimism is a great motivator but shouldn’t replace the realism brought out from experience.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky identified the all-too-common problem as the planning fallacy – our tendency to be overly optimistic about timelines and budgets. For example, in 2013, the Norwegian parliament approved a kr350m ($33m) budget for a new underground garage with a four-year timeline.
The initial cost estimate in 2011 had been kr70m ($6.7m). By the time the project was completed five years later, costs had soared to kr2.3bn ($220m). What went wrong? The project seemed straightforward, but real-life complexities like traffic redirection, heightened security, certification, supplier delays, and changing specifications kicked in.
Instead of anticipating challenges and factoring in contingencies, planners had been overly optimistic. Had they drawn on insights from other large-scale projects, like Oslo’s Opera House, the Fjord Tunnel, or the National Bank building – each of which faced similar obstacles but met their budgets and deadlines – they would have mitigated many of these issues early on.
Recognize and address the planning fallacy. When tackling large projects, learn from similar past projects, assess potential setbacks, and build in time and budget contingencies. Optimism is a great motivator but shouldn’t replace the realism brought out from experience.
The intention behind these new structures was commendable, but employees drowned in paperwork and were confused about priorities, leading to a decline in morale and productivity.
My former BCG colleague, Yves Morieux, coined the term “smart simplicity”, which has an important insight: adding more rules, structures, and systems to boost performance often backfires. Over time, companies become so entangled in their frameworks that employees feel stuck.
The solution is to embrace simplification and trust. Consider the approach many companies follow when establishing sustainability departments. One large manufacturing company launched a sustainability initiative that promised to revolutionize its operations. They created a dedicated task force with a lengthy list of ambitious targets and new metrics to measure success.
Initially, employees were excited about the direction. However, as the project rolled out, confusion set in. The team began generating data requests, and instead of feeling motivated by the sustainability goals, employees felt burdened by additional tasks, with many asking, “Why are we being asked to do even more when we’re already stretched so thin?”
The intention behind these new structures was commendable, but employees drowned in paperwork and were confused about priorities, leading to a decline in morale and productivity.
The hidden cost of adding new objectives, initiatives, or structures is significant. While it may seem wise to set more targets, these actions can lead to confusion. Organizations should focus on simplifying their goals and processes.
The project teams were stretched thin, competing for the same engineers, developers, and project managers.
Kim Clarke and Steven Wheelwright emphasized the importance of viewing projects as a portfolio rather than in isolation.[2] A former CEO compared managing projects to building a piece of art: “If you add too many elements, the entire composition becomes cluttered and loses impact. It’s the same with projects – if they don’t fit together cohesively, you can’t appreciate the whole.”
This perspective is crucial when considering new initiatives. Before approving an additional project, evaluate whether the organization has the necessary resources and management bandwidth. Just because a project looks promising doesn’t mean it should be greenlit.
Consider a tech company that embarked on multiple new software development projects. Each project appeared innovative and promising, attracting enthusiastic support from different departments. However, resource allocation became a significant issue. The project teams were stretched thin, competing for the same engineers, developers, and project managers.
Critical deadlines slipped, and the organization faced delays and frustration. Eventually, the leadership team adopted a portfolio view, assessing ongoing projects in the context of the company’s strategic goals. They paused or scaled back many initiatives, redirecting resources to the most impactful ones.
A holistic approach to project management. Don’t greenlight a project just because it seems good stand-alone. It must fit within the broader context of the organization’s goals.
Consider the experience of a consulting team working on a significant project for a major client. One Friday evening, the lead partner emailed outlining thoughts for an upcoming presentation, inadvertently using language that suggested urgency. A junior associate, eager to impress and contribute, interpreted this as a call to action.
She gathered the team that weekend, leading to late-night brainstorming sessions and edits to ensure everything was perfect for the Monday morning meeting, missing her son’s football game.
On Monday, when the partner casually remarked that he hadn’t intended for the team to scramble, it struck a nerve. The team had invested their weekend, but the partner was unaware of the impact his message had caused. I witnessed this scenario unfold countless times. It underscores the lengths people will go to in the name of commitment and responsibility.
Team members care deeply about their work, but sometimes expectations are unclear, leading to over-commitment and unnecessary stress.
The need for clarity and respect for personal time. Leaders must be explicit about what’s urgent and what can wait, especially when communicating outside regular work hours.
Striving for clarity and alignment within the organization will lead to better performance and higher morale.
It is crucial to recognize the root causes of complexity within organizations. Here are five things to consider:
Avoid the success trap. Success can sometimes lead companies to adopt an inward-looking perspective. When organizations focus too much on internal processes and lose sight of external realities, they risk becoming self-absorbed and inefficient, ultimately increasing complexity.
Be a devil’s advocate on good intentions. Many decisions to improve efficiency or enhance performance overlook the unintended consequences, such as increased complexity and decreased employee engagement.
Beware of the risk of making great talent bad. The effectiveness of talented individuals diminishes when spread too thin across multiple projects. Companies must allocate their top talent judiciously.
Make hidden costs visible. Recognizing the hidden costs associated with decisions, such as time consumption, increased complexity, and reduced productivity, is essential. Failing to acknowledge these costs can have long-term detrimental effects on an organization’s efficiency and morale.
Check the big picture. Maintaining a clear, overarching view of all processes and projects is vital. Without this perspective, complexity can quickly accumulate, leading to inefficiencies and organizational fragmentation.
By being mindful of these root causes, leaders can take meaningful steps to reduce complexity and promote a more cohesive, engaged, and effective workforce. Remember, simplicity is critical. Striving for clarity and alignment within the organization will lead to better performance and higher morale.
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