I guess it's complicated

11-2-2018

There’s a joke in my industry. When you ask a consultant their guidance on something they almost invariably answer with “it depends” or “it’s complicated.” I’ve worked with many MANY consultants over the past decade and a half and, you know what, this is very true. In fact, the biggest red flag I’ve seen when seeking architecture guidance from an “expert” is when they emphatically and unequivocally answer all the questions with no deliberation. When there is no mention of nuances, trade-offs, or problems down the road with a given choice…well. Suffice to say I get concerned. In short, I LIKE being told “it’s complicated.” When you tell me it’s complicated you’re telling me, at the very least, that you’ve thought past step 2 of a far-reaching decision.

And, in a nutshell, this is my problem with political parties. It’s why I fall into the ‘Centrist’ camp almost by default. Because a political party, by design, wants to answer every question with a soundbite. A politician can’t ever answer a question with “it’s complicated” because that just doesn’t play well to the base. And god forbid they don’t play for the base. This, to my mind, is a problem with our system. It’s not a soluble problem, mind you, because, hey, it’s complicated.

Another thing I’ve learned with my work is that, while rare, there are also easy choices to be made and almost everybody in the room can instantly see the right choice. These are the quick decisions, the obvious ones, the choices that you check off the list and move on to arguing for endless hours about the other ones. However, these are only easy when everyone in the room has a primary motivation of solving the problem in the best way. When, instead, the people sitting in the room have competing egos and don’t like each other for some reason these can just drain the energy out of the room. They can screw up the decision making progress. I should note at this point that this is never me because I have no ego to speak of and certainly don’t get stubborn for no good reason… *clears throat*