Industry on complexity | Poll | Add your comment | Issues
If something’s complicating your life, why don’t you just get rid of it?
Complexity exists around us in our daily lives – geographically, technologically and in business. It can either have a negative or positive effect.
The key is identifying good and bad complexity and finding the areas that make a difference in value to you personally, or value to your business.
For example, PwC research has found that 79% of CEOs feel complexity has added unnecessary cost to their business. But does it really need to be this way?
We look at how complexity manifests itself in organisations and what they and their people can do about it. Some of the top CEOs of big business have been telling us what they are changing, what would you like to change to manage complexity? Have your say here
April 2008
UK governments attitude to education - financial investment in teachers, materials and peroperty. Simplification of curriculum and decrease in red tape to allow teachers to teach.
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
Abolish Working and Child Tax Credits and in their place increase tax allowances to cover the costs of child care, and allowances for disabled workers. Its crazy to tax with one hand and give back benefits with the other. The tax credits system costs a fortune to administer and non-one understands how it works, especially the people who have to claim the tax credits.
Added by Rebecca Cave on 04-04-2008
Party politics is an absolute joke. Simplify the system. There should be only two parties.
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
I would like to see the police allowed to do the job of reducing crime and not glorified administration assistants. Un-tie their hands and let them do what only they know how to do best. They know who the criminals are and who the decent members of society are. Let them stop the criminals and not a politically led mixture of a community. Stop asking them to fill out 32 page booklets everytime a neighbour hears someones TV on too loud and reports it as a domestic. Let them help to keep you all safe and try to understand not condemn!
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
Complexity keeps a lot of people in jobs and as it is not in their best interest to change, is it really something that can be eradicated?
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
I think that sometimes people make things at work seem complex than they so that they can appear to be more intelligent or show off their skills in a particular area. I think businesses should actively encourage their people to keep things simple.
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
Doesn't chaos theory suggest that large organisations are always going to be prone to complex behaviour - therefore what are you really trying to change?
Added by Anonymous on 03-04-2008
I would like to see the police allowed to do the job of reducing crime and not glorified administration assistants. Un-tie their hands and let them do what only they know how to do best. They know who the criminals are and who the decent members of society are. Let them stop the criminals and not a politically led mixture of a community. Stop asking them to fill out 32 page booklets everytime a neighbour hears someones TV on too loud and reports it as a domestic. Let them help to keep you all safe and try to understand not condemn!
Added by Anonymous on 11-12-2007
There are different styles of leadership. The proposition team refered to functional leadership, management being one of them. There is a style of leadership which I consider is the best one: transformational leadership which is inspirational, considerate, intellectually challenging and focused on goup success and welfare. Leaders are coherent and moral leadership is a critical element of transformational leadership, therefore challenging status quo is inminent. I guess a more challenging question for the panel would be: Is PwC prepared to appreciate transformational leadership as much as functional leadership?
Added by Eugenia on 15-05-2008
The number of procedures to get simple things done! Why do we need a business plan, key objectives, milestones, a (inventive) timeframe, risk analysis, mechanisms to mitigate risks, etc. for everything we do? It seems that I spend more time doing reports on advances rather than advancing on doing actual things. Is it just me?
Added by Kadu on 18-04-2008
The complex matrix structures in most organizations. This has uniformly failed to either keep employees satisfied or make the organization more efficient. Yet year on year in different countries and different organizations we see this being implemented.
Added by Prakash Kamath on 12-04-2008
The civil service. It is FAR too complicated, and wastes so much money each year.
Added by Anonymous on 09-04-2008
The "Big bosses" ability to communicate down the chain of command...do they really care about how they communicate - being clear about what they mean and leading from the top. (Oh and having good managers to help them find their way!)
Added by Anonymous on 07-04-2008
Matrix structures. Why?
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
Can someone please make it less complicated (and slow) to get around London??
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
Accepted office jargon: lets leverage this strategic opportunity.....can we take this offline....integrating into BAS....heads-up.....thinking out of the box....lets fly this up the flag pole and see who salutes it....tanks on the lawn....when did business language get so complicated and stop making sense?!
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
Internal systems that join up. For example: link company credit card info to pre-populate expenses claims systems - saving staff time, which can be used to add value to clients instead of doing admin. Also, populate time sheet system, again saving staff time by reducing duplication.
Added by Anonymous on 04-04-2008
