Sesame Street Simple

I recently read that A. J. Laffley, who was CEO of Proctor and Gamble for a decade, has a philosophy:

Keep it simple Sesame Street simple.

As an entrepreneur, as a music tutor to adults (and children), as a marketer, and as a communications writer, I find this advice useful. It is the - simple - strategy at the heart of success in each endeavour. If A. J. Laffley found it useful in the cut-throat world of international cleaning and personal care supplies, who are we to argue?

Yet simplicity as an approach seems to be rather despised today. Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, 'as simple as possible and no simpler'. It's been used ever since as an excuse to cover a multitude of sins. While 'simple' in advanced physics may be genuinely complex, this is rarely the case when communicating with humans.

Sesame Street simple is a modest skill - it doesn't draw attention to itself, it draws attention to the message. A good example is this 3minute animated explanation of wikis by commoncraft. (The website includes other gems such as 'phishing'.) A complex or confusing explanation may make us assume the explainer has a high IQ (or merely that we have a low IQ, or that the explainer is confused too), a simple explanation makes us feel intelligent. It's then we appreciate that the explainer did a good job, although usually only if we've experienced a bad explanation first, otherwise a good explanation seems natural and obvious.

So the next time you need to tell someone something, keep it Sesame Street simple. As artist David Hockney is quoted as saying: "Anything simple interests me."

This is post 95 of 100 posts in 100 days.