The WAY to WOW Shows
Clarity Beats Complexity
August 18, 2026
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:02] Military history is filled with brilliant plans that failed not because they were poorly conceived, but because they were too complicated to execute. Every additional objective, every extra maneuver, every layer of coordination increases the chance that something will go wrong. The military has long recognized this reality, elevating simplicity to one of the enduring principles of war. Today on Business Lessons from the Military.

[0:37] >> [music]

[0:38] >> Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want?

[0:47] >> [music]

[0:53] >> Hello and welcome to Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I'm here every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about military history, doctrine, and leadership practices and then distill from them lessons that we can apply to our businesses and professional practices. So, today I'm talking about how simplicity beats complexity. I I previewed it right before uh the show introduction bumper. Now, I want to be clear about something from

[1:28] the outset. This principle does not mean that military operations are simple. If you can think back to the operation to take uh Nicholas Maduro out of Venezuela and into American justice, there is no way that was a simple operation, okay? Modern warfare is complex. It involves intelligence, logistics, transportation, cyber operations, air operations, naval

[2:03] forces, space assets, all kinds of coalitions, okay? So, the military's insight is that because the environment is complex, the plan has to be as simple as possible. And we have the same situation in the business world, okay? We markets are unpredictable. Customers change their minds. Competitors react unexpectedly. Technology evolves rapidly. So, organizations often have to respond by

[2:40] creating more policies, more complexity, more reports, and more detailed plans. Ironically, often these these these efforts to control the complexity often make the organization less effective. And so, the military teaches a different lesson. That is, complex environments require simple execution. So, talking about the military side of things first, right? I think there is

[3:17] this tendency to believe that everything involved in the military is very very complex. Everything about it is complex. And if you're a fan of the TV show Hogan's Heroes, which I've mentioned from time to time, many of Colonel Hogan's plans are very very complex, intricate, requiring all kinds of precise timing, and all that kind of stuff, right? Which which reinforces this idea that everything in the military is complex.

[3:52] That That is That is not the case. There are many many things in the military, many lengths to which the military goes to make things as simple as possible in order to avoid mistakes, in order to avoid errors, right? So, and and and the real crux of the matter is the combat environment inherently creates confusion, right? So, you've got communications that are disrupted or delays. You have changes in

[4:28] the weather that happen unexpectedly. Units arrive late or they become separated. They lose equipment. There are casualties to leadership. Officers are killed or wounded. Unit effectiveness decreases. And and something I'm going to be talking about in a few weeks, intelligence proves incomplete or inaccurate, right? So, Carl von Clausewitz called this the fog of war. I I I've spoken about his book on war in a previous episode. I I I

[5:04] invite you to to, you know, go to the go to my YouTube channel uh and and and and take a look. Uh so, the uncertainty that uh surrounds military operations is inevitable, and so, in order to create the chan- the greatest chance that a plan will work, the plan itself needs to be simple, right? So, simple orders are easier to understand, okay? The fact of the matter is even two of the two most intelligent

[5:40] people in the world could interpret what one is telling the other differently. We have different backgrounds, different perspectives. Sometimes our minds are not as fully focused on what's being told to us as we think they are. And so then in retrospect, we realize, "Hmm, I'm not really sure what the other person said." All of those are just part of the human condition, right? So, complicated instructions make it even more confusing, right? So, clear objectives reduce uncertainty.

[6:15] Simple language minimizes ambiguity. Uh every subordinate needs to understand the commander's intent, and therefore that intent needs to be just deal with the basics, be as clear as possible, right? That way decisions can be made more quickly. So, military orders often focus on what must be accomplished, why it matters, and the essential constraints. The how of it all it is is left to the subordinates who have to

[6:53] actually execute the order. The most important thing is that they understand the objective and why it's important. And so that they can improvise if necessary to meet it and not be tied down by, you know, rules from a higher echelon. So, and that that that highlights the next point I want to make. Simplicity encourages initiative. If I know what a higher echelon wants me to do and why it's important, then I can

[7:29] I can uh I I can I can invent on the fly what needs to be done to get there. And that's crucially important. Indeed, if if you talk to people who know World War II. I used to talk to my dad about this. He was in the Navy just after World War II and a lot of the instructors he had especially fought they were Marines who had fought in the the Pacific theater of operations. One of the reasons they attributed the

[8:04] US victory, one of the reasons to which they attributed US victory was that the Japanese military did not give the level of flexibility to individual soldiers and sailors in theater that the American military did, right? So, the the American philosophy of explain the objective and why it's important, let the field the commanders in the field and the even the individual soldiers and Marines and sailors in the

[8:39] field take initiative where their Japanese counterparts may not have. It was a tremendous advantage, right? So, leaders understand priority and that way teams can adapt without waiting for new instructions when they understand the commander's intent. So, initiative remains aligned with that intent and that way small unit and so then small units they can solve the problems locally instead of having

[9:15] to kick it up the chain of command and then wait for it to come down and maybe by then an opportunity is lost. So, complicated plans require a lot more supervision, whereas simple plans allow junior officers and more junior personnel to initiate and and to to initiate and to uh and to be creative in the field in getting to the particular a particular objective. Finally, every layer of

[9:50] complexity adds additional risk, right? And and it compounds. It's like compounding interest. Compounding interest, great thing. Compounding complexity, it's basically at some point gone going to cause a breakdown, right? So, every additional moving part introduces another opportunity for failure. So, the more coordination means more communications are required. More communications increases a chance that something will

[10:26] be misunderstood. More dependencies create bottlenecks. More decisions points slow execution. So, military planners continually ask, what do we eliminate without reducing mission effectiveness? In other words, how can we simplify a plan further and still make be as as as sure as we can that we've provided what needs to be there in order to give the operation the greatest level of success. So,

[11:04] uh the historical example I I'm using today is Operation Overlord, uh the D-Day the so-called D-Day invasion on June 6th, 1944. One of maybe to this day the most complex military operation of all time. First of all, it was an amphibious landing, which just by their nature are always complex. Second of all, it was an unprecedentedly large force. There were 156,000 Allied troops landing just on the first

[11:41] day. There were thousands of ships, thousands of aircraft. There were airborne divisions that were dropped behind the the the lines on the beach to secure certain critical points so that the offensive could advance. There was naval gunfire support. There were There was intelligence operations. There were deception campaigns. So, and there were major major logistical channel logistical planning that went into being able to cross the English Channel and

[12:18] keep this whole operation supplied. Right? Behind the scenes, as I just said a moment ago, it was an enormously complex operation, probably the Again, to this day, the most complex military operation that's ever been mounted. And and yet Dwight Eisenhower insisted that the mission given to individual units remain very straightforward. Each unit had a clearly designed beach.

[12:53] In fact, it had a clearly assigned segment on a beach. It had specific objectives. It had limited priorities, and had a clear understanding of the overall mission. And if you've ever read about D-Day, you know how many units were landed in the wrong place, and, you know, far down the beach from where they should have been. They They lost their equipment. People drowned, unfortunately. All kinds of things went wrong. Probably hundreds of things went wrong, and yet because each unit knew what its

[13:29] objective was, it could regroup and march off toward its objective. And in fact, of course, the D-Day invasion was successful. Right? And so, this is the power of simplicity. Okay? And [snorts] so, when we when we talk about it, we you know, we we have to recognize and and I've I've say this pretty regularly on this show. Plans are are worthless, but planning is

[14:06] essential. Okay? Because it's through planning that we other we uncover other we uncover obstacles, problems that otherwise might have remained hidden. So, we go through the planning process to get our minds engaged in how we're going to be successful. But the plan itself that emerges, we need to recognize that it's not going to survive first contact with the enemy as von Moltke said, right? So, in the in the in the D-Day invasion,

[14:41] airborne troops landed in some cases miles away from their intended drop zones. Uh gliders crashed, airborne troops got caught in the trees and and such um in at Sainte-Mère-Église. Um landing crafts uh they they arrived at incorrect beaches. Some of them dropped their troops off way too far far way too far away from the shore um and the troops drowned because the the coxswain of the boat was too afraid

[15:16] to go farther inland. Communications failed. Um there were a lot of casualties among officers and so somebody else had to take the initiative. And the German resistance really varied dramatically from what the expectations were. The we you know, we thought that the the pounding that the naval guns and and aircraft would, you know, basically destroy the German defenses, but they had been built so solidly uh by um

[15:51] uh Erwin uh Erwin Rommel, Field Marshal Rommel, that most of them survived and and had to be taken uh you know, once the soldiers um uh hit the beach. So, um It it it it it was just it it was I mean, if you've ever watched the movie The Longest Day, it of course is not 100% uh historically accurate, but it gives an amazingly, I think, true feel, which is one of the which is one of the

[16:26] advantages of of movies. It gives a true feel, I think, of what it might have felt like to land on that beach. So, simplicity made a difference because uh every every platoon, every rifle team, every company, so it it it it it didn't require uh detailed approval when it had to change what it needed to do. It it it knew that there was a particular objective it had to take and it dug down and got to that

[17:04] objective. And imagine the opposite, if everything had to be cleared through higher echelons, which were in their own state of chaos. Most of them were still at sea, uh you know, while while the initial invasion troops landed. it would have been a disaster. And so, the decentralized decision-making that came from this very simple plan, where each unit had its objective, in the end is what made D-Day successful. Okay? So, let's take a quick break and then let's look at some lessons that we

[17:40] can learn from simplicity. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't add to your stress. Magnum Properties specializes in probate and trust real estate management. We handle the complexities while you focus on what matters most. From property maintenance to tenant relations, from legal compliance to maximizing value, we're your trusted partner through every step. Magnum Properties Inc., turning property challenges into peace of mind.

[18:18] Call us today at 213-264-4396 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay. [snorts] So, first business lesson, make your strategy easy to explain. If an employee cannot explain the strategy, that employee cannot execute it, okay? So, leaders should reduce strategic priorities to a handful,

[18:53] no, three or four, five at the most, very clear objectives, okay? Eliminate unnecessary jargon. Make them as plain language as you can. And then ensure every employee understands the organizations direction. And then regularly reinforce these key priorities through communication, okay? So, a strategy that requires a, you know, 40-page

[19:30] you know, strategy document or a, you know, 80-slide PowerPoint, it is not going to guide daily decisions, right? Employees should know every day what are the basic objectives of our company and how do I fit into it? What is my place? That gives them first of all, it gives them ownership of their part of the strategy, no matter how big or small that part is. They feel

[20:08] part of something larger than themselves. And two, it get it gives them the opportunity to improvise, take initiative in reaching their part of it. Okay? So, if one one part of the strategy is to increase sales of let's let's take a let's take a clothing store, okay? So, we want to increase sales of accessories, maybe, because accessories have a higher profit

[20:44] margin than clothing. I don't know if that's true, but just using it as an example, right? So, then every employee should know that one point of our strategy, one of the three to five points of our strategy is increasing sales of accessories, okay? And then let them, you know, create some kind of incentive for doing that. Maybe the employee gets, you know, a 5% commission in addition to his salary on every accessory he sells,

[21:21] okay? And then let him figure out how to do it. Give him the leeway to be creative in how he meets that objective, okay? That will be a very powerful way to bring your people into feeling like they're part of something while still preserving their initiative, okay? But you start got to start out by making your strategy easy to explain. Next, just mercilessly

[21:56] eliminate unnecessary complexity, okay? So, organizations tend to accrete complexity over time. So, something happens, something goes wrong, and a new procedure is put in place to prevent that thing from happening. And that happens 10 times a year, and now there's this whole new elaborate set of of requirements that, you know, employees have to go through, and yet, you know, these are

[22:31] one-off problems or something like that. Just because a problem occurs doesn't mean we need a new, you know, a new standard procedure to handle it, right? So, business leaders should regularly ask, "What can we stop doing?" Right? So, redundant reports. Do we really need to do all these reports? Do we need to do them as all as often as we do them? Okay? Maybe we do, but but maybe not. Maybe we're just taking up an employee's

[23:06] time, right? Do we need excessive layers of approval, or could it really be approved at the lowest level possible? And And what if What would be so bad if it's approved at a lower level and approved and it turns out to have been a you know, an incorrect decision? Oh, well. I mean, is it really Is the whole existence of a company going to crumble because of that? Probably not. Is this meeting really necessary? My friend Michael had one of his favorite thing. Is this meeting really necessary? If the answer is no, the meeting should not happen. Okay?

[23:42] You know, do we need a complicated pricing structure? Do we need duplicate software systems? Now, maybe we do. Maybe [snorts] if the software system goes down, it puts us out of business. But we need to be we need to constantly be evaluating and reevaluating our systems, our processes, and simplifying them to give people the brain space and the flexibility to execute on their piece of the mission as efficiently as possible. Okay?

[24:17] All right. Number three. Give people clear objectives, not endless instructions. Okay? So, military leaders focus on communicating their intent, not micromanaging. Okay? So, in business, we can talk about the desired outcome that we want in a particular situation, rather than dictating a process, right? So, we can establish clear priorities.

[24:53] Okay? One of the best ways to tie our employees up is to tell them, I have five priorities. Okay, first of all, that's inherently contradictory. You can't have We can't No one can have five priorities. They can have five objectives, only one of them can be the top priority. So, you have priorities one through five. That we can articulate to our people and then let them operate within that framework. Right? We can specify constraints where necessary, right? Maybe we just can't

[25:29] afford the level of advertising support that we had last year for whatever reason. So, let people know that and encourage them to be creative in in dealing with that constraint, okay? And finally, allow employees maximum flexibility in execution, right? Again, give them the objective and say, "Okay, figure out how you want to get there." Now, we don't want to If if an employee is new, very junior, they may need some

[26:04] help with figuring that out. So, we need to make sure they have the support, the training that they need. But what we want to do is create a cadre of people who will think creatively and take the initiative to meet the objectives of our company, right? So, the people closest to the problem often know the best solution, right? I I I've used this term many times. We call it in the in the Marine Corps, the strategic corporal. That's the non-commissioned officer in the Marine

[26:39] Corps who's going to be closest to the problem. He's strategic because he's As much as possible, we want to give him the decision-making authority and flexibility to achieve, to attain that objective. Okay. So, number three, give people clear objection objectives, not endless instructions. Number four, design processes that work under pressure. It's really easy to divide to to devise very elaborate processes that

[27:16] when when there's no pressure, we have lots of time, we can go step by step by step by step or whatever to do them. But when the pressure's on, are those systems going to hold? Are those processes going to get us where we need to go? And if they're complicated, the answer almost assuredly is no. So, a process that works only when everything is going perfectly fine is not a good process. We need processes that are going to work when there's a communication breakdown,

[27:51] when to technology fails us, when leadership is under a lot of pressure and can't respond as quickly to requests for clarification or information that they might when they're not under the same kind of pressure, right? So, organizations should test procedures during busy periods. And and quickly adopt adapt them if they're not working, right? So, they should organizations should plan for employee absences. They should simplify

[28:28] customer interactions or client interactions, and they should reduce dependence on a single individual who often times is the founder and the owner of the company. If everything has to flow through that person, you we have a single point of failure and it's the question is not if it fails, it's when it fails, okay? So, we need to build redundancy into critical operations, but only the critical ones, okay? We

[29:03] don't want a lot of redundancy, but on the other hand, we don't want a situation where if the owner of the business gets sick or God forbid he's in the hospital or whatever, now the whole the whole enterprise grinds to a halt, okay? So, resilient organizations function even when conditions are less than ideal, but we need to be looking at how do we build those those systems, that resiliency when before we're in crisis mode. Okay. So, design processes that work under

[29:39] pressure. Number five, finally. Complexity is a hidden cost, okay? It may seem really cool and clever and all that kind of stuff, but in the end, a lot of complexity means we're raising the expense to our firm. So, every additional product, every additional rule, every additional process carries with it ongoing costs, plus it puts our people in the mindset that this is what we want. We want more elaboration, okay?

[30:15] Whereas, if we focus on simplicity, okay? Then we're telling our people, "No, what we want is streamlined, efficient, well-working processes, products, services, etc." So,

[30:34] >> [snorts]

[30:34] >> leaders should evaluate complexity by asking questions such as, "Does this improve customer value. Does this improve quality? Does it improve safety? Does it improve profitability? Does it justify the additional coordination and complexity required? Those are the kind of things we should be asking. Right before I I I started this show, I was responding to an email that that I received. And

[31:09] uh it uh one of the people uh uh informed us of something that was going to be happening, and another one of the people said basically said, "We need to draw a red line here." Right? And I read both emails, and my first thought was, "Yeah, right?" And then I realized, that is not necessarily the best way to achieve our goals. And so I sent a a email reply saying, "I appreciate the sent I think we all appreciate the

[31:45] sentiment in the email about drawing the red line. But let's take a step back and remember, we want to try and solve this problem." Okay? So rather than drawing red lines, let's think about how do we achieve our objectives most creatively? Okay? Uh [snorts] and and so we I so I I wanted to relieve the potentially hidden cost of complexity by having all these, you know, specific issues that are are

[32:22] not specific issues, specific requirements that need to be met. Let's just keep our eyes on the big picture. And if we can find a solution to the problem, maybe it doesn't have this red line included, but that may be okay, because maybe the solution is good enough without it. Okay? So, simplicity often produces both lower costs and better performance. Okay? One of the biggest challenges we have today is cognitive overload. And we need

[32:57] to reduce that as much as possible. So, the the Normandy invasion reminds us that simplicity is not the absence of sophistication. So, behind the D-Day invasion, there was months, really almost years of planning, extraordinary logistical cooperation, intelligence gathering, and and in the largest operation in military history. Okay? Yet, when the moment of execution

[33:34] arrived, individuals knew both the individual soldiers and the junior leaders, they were given clear, uncomplicated, simple missions they could understand and that they could adapt and achieve. Okay? So, this is a very important distinction for businesses. Your your customers don't experience the complexity of your of of your supply chains, of your accounting systems, of your organizational charts. They

[34:09] experience the clarity or the confusion of the execution. And that's the thing on which we want to keep our eyes. So, military leaders understand that complexity belongs behind the scenes, simplicity belongs at the point of action, okay? So, [snorts] as an organization grows, there's a temptation to solve every new problem with a with a with another policy, another meeting, another layer of approval, another layer of

[34:44] management. History suggests that this is the wrong approach. A better approach is to simplify whenever possible and to accept that mistakes are going to get made. Sometimes failure is going to occur, but if we issue simple objectives and empower our people to meet them, that gives us the greatest likelihood of success. And so, the best military organizations,

[35:21] like the best businesses, they do not win because they eliminate complexity. They win because they they prevent complexity from overwhelming execution. So, if you look right down below you, you'll see show notes. Put a put a comment, if you would, where in your organization have you eliminated complexity or created a more simple process that actually enhanced your business. I'd love to hear about that. Okay?

[35:58] All right. Now, schedule of shows. Mondays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Trusts and Estates Weekly. Tuesdays, like today, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, Business Lessons from the Military. Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, uh People Making Money. And then every Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, join me at Jiggers's Place for a cocktail and a schmooze, and we'll talk about all kinds of things not related to finances, like uh relationships and books and movies, and ideas, all those wonderful things that make life worth living. So, I thank you very much for joining me

[36:35] today. Wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and signing off as I always do, Marie Darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.