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Lessons from Winston Churchill… (in 2 mins)

Allegedly, at the height of the second world war and at the end of an eight page memo, Winston Churchill wrote the famous line… “I’m sorry this is so long, I didn’t have time to make it shorter”.

Even if the quote has also been attributed to Mark Twain and Blaise Pascal, Mr Churchill was a huge fan of simplicity.  He wrote a memo to the entire war office, on the rules for brevity and the removal of padding from communications. 

Churchill’s call for brevity

Simple is always better. But simple is hard; annoyingly, it usually comes after complicated, not before.

There’s been a long running battle amongst the lovers of all things design around the argument of form over function. The criticism is that some focus on the aesthetic at the cost of its utility.  Or better put, how it looks over whether it’s better at doing its job.

In the 1990s, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, embraced function and a drive for simplicity when he was commissioned to design the Illionies Institutute of Technology. 

He built the campus buildings; he laid out all the beautiful grass areas too. But, importantly, Rem left out the pavements between the buildings. Instead, he let the students find the quickest route between the buildings. And, after a while, he returned with his team and simply laid paved pathways across the muddy tracks.

SO WHAT?

Technology is an amazing enabler; businesses are able to democratise previously complicated processes directly to customers.  Yes, it empowers customers but it is also saving business £millions in reduced admin.   And AI, is only going to drive this trend further. But the closer we get to our customer, the general rule should always be ‘can we make it simpler, easier, quicker…’.  No one lost a £1million by making something simpler but the reverse is true.