Question
Why do smart people, who know that this world is so complex, bang on about needing simplicity - and yet don't want to put the effort in?
Answer
"I would not give a farthing for the simplicity on this side of complexity. I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." (SOTOSOC) -- Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Getting to SOTOSOC is just the absolute hardest kind of thinking there is. And in terms of a certain notion of complexity, Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity, that applies here (it would take too long to explain why), you can never know if you've managed to reduce a SOTOSOC to the simplest possible SOTOSOC. It's an undecidability thing. So... smart people, who are often perfectionists, even when they DO conquer Mount Complexity and go down the SOTOSOC valley on the other side, often don't want to let go...
I'll add: what you see as a symptom (looking for shortcuts) is actually a very good symptom of high effectiveness, because another characteristic of complex issues is that they are complex in a different sense (NP completeness this time). Even if they know nothing about the theory of complexity, many senior execs get where they get because they instinctively recognize that the only solutions are "local" short-cuts, with the general problem being intractable. So they avoid the general war, win specific battles through short cuts, get promoted, and move on/up. In other words, they turn H. L. Mencken's quip, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" into a powerful prescription, and make sure they are operating in a domain where the "wrongness" won't bite them before they can get away.
The crude lay definitions of the 2 kinds of complexity are: "there is no compact and elegantly describable solution" and "the best solution is brute force."
These 2 kinds create a double jeopardy situation for all solutions to complex problems. First, it must be tried for inelegance. If acquitted, it must be tried for efficiency.
Sorry if this answer is obscure. I am trying to turn some very mathematical ideas into a pop-sciency answer to this question.
Getting to SOTOSOC is just the absolute hardest kind of thinking there is. And in terms of a certain notion of complexity, Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity, that applies here (it would take too long to explain why), you can never know if you've managed to reduce a SOTOSOC to the simplest possible SOTOSOC. It's an undecidability thing. So... smart people, who are often perfectionists, even when they DO conquer Mount Complexity and go down the SOTOSOC valley on the other side, often don't want to let go...
I'll add: what you see as a symptom (looking for shortcuts) is actually a very good symptom of high effectiveness, because another characteristic of complex issues is that they are complex in a different sense (NP completeness this time). Even if they know nothing about the theory of complexity, many senior execs get where they get because they instinctively recognize that the only solutions are "local" short-cuts, with the general problem being intractable. So they avoid the general war, win specific battles through short cuts, get promoted, and move on/up. In other words, they turn H. L. Mencken's quip, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong" into a powerful prescription, and make sure they are operating in a domain where the "wrongness" won't bite them before they can get away.
The crude lay definitions of the 2 kinds of complexity are: "there is no compact and elegantly describable solution" and "the best solution is brute force."
These 2 kinds create a double jeopardy situation for all solutions to complex problems. First, it must be tried for inelegance. If acquitted, it must be tried for efficiency.
Sorry if this answer is obscure. I am trying to turn some very mathematical ideas into a pop-sciency answer to this question.