According to Steve Jobs, “Simple can be harder than complicated: you have to work hard to clear your thinking to make it simple.” It seems clear that keeping things simple will help your business succeed. And yet, it's surprisingly hard to do.

If simplicity is so challenging, you have to be intentional about making it happen. This is why many successful companies actively prioritize it as a value. Ikea's focus on simplicity shows in its designs, catalog, store experience and more. One of Nike's 11 management principles is “simplify and go,” focusing teams on moving quickly toward adapt to new technologies and fashion.

I believe that simplicity is a driver of genius innovation. In fact, my journey as an entrepreneur began with an idea to simplify a complex and bureaucratic process. Today, the success of this idea has created new challenges. We serve millions of customers in over 100 countries, with many different needs — to meet them all, we would need a variety of different features. So we need to find the simplest ideas that will improve the experience for the largest number of users.

Connected: Here's Why You Should Embrace Simplicity As A Strategy (And 3 Ways To Do It)

Simplifying innovation is a recipe for success

Some people think that to be an entrepreneur, you have to bring groundbreaking technological innovations to the world. But in fact, there is a lot of room for it innovated on top of new technologiessimplifying and packaging them for specific use cases.

If you think about two of the tech giants of our time, Google and Apple, neither of them invented their core technologies. Apple was not the first company to create a home computer or mobile phone, Google was not the first company to develop a search engine. They made existing innovations simpler and more user-friendly, and that was a recipe for success.

This is especially important now in the midst of a revolution fueled by Generative AI. There are certainly great opportunities in creating new AI-driven technologies, but there are even more opportunities in finding ways to package these technologies into user-friendly software for specific use cases.

To do this, first master the technology and then put yourself in the shoes of your potential user. Try to understand what is really useful about the innovation and what obstacles people may face when trying to use it.

The key is to find a way to simplify the technology, making it easier for your target users to understand and adopt it. Do this and you will be a winner.

Work smarter by simplifying communication

Another part of any business where simplification is extremely important is communications and processes. As companies grow, it becomes more difficult to get people on the same page or to ensure continuity between departments. Poor communication it creates misunderstandings, which can lead to mistakes. The more people involved in a project, the more likely workflows will become complicated. All of this slows things down, wastes time, and limits your ability to impact the business.

Let's start with communication. Using a single, simple language throughout the company is essential for people to be able to understand each other. For example, try to use less jargon and three-letter acronyms, or be sure to explain them if you do. By creating organized archives of historical documents and plans, you help onboard new people and anyone can find important information quickly when they need it.

Create one the culture of transparency where different departments share their plans with each other. Create frameworks to facilitate this, such as quarterly reviews or setting roadmaps. It's not possible for employees to be actively involved in everything that happens in the company, but by helping everyone participate passively, you're making sure they're on the same page and can facilitate ideas and collaborations across teams.

When you must communicate, encourage your teams to do so in the most direct way possible. By simplifying communication and making it easy to understand, discussions are more focused and decisions are made faster.

Connected: The key to effectively communicating important messages is all about simplicity

Put simplicity at the heart of your product

A simplification mindset can also apply product development. By making small incremental changes, sometimes with test groups of users, you can use the inspect and adapt methodology to understand their adoption, as well as any issues, and further innovate accordingly. From time to time, you can combine all these small changes into one big product update that you roll out to everyone.

For example: A company added a lot of additional value to its product with new features and versions. In theory, this was great for users, but some found the interface overwhelming and the new pricing options confusing. To use a metaphor, some people are happy to be given ingredients to prepare their meal, but most would rather have the chef do the cooking so they can enjoy the end result.

Understanding this through them FEEDBACK, the company introduced a change to its UI that helped users get the end result they wanted without having to work hard to achieve it themselves. By simplifying, the company maximized the value impact of all new additions to the product.

Connected: Keep it simple: Why simplicity is key to winning your brand

Richard Branson once said, “Any fool can make something complicated. It's hard to keep things simple.” Simplicity will not come by chance – you have to be intentional. You need to call it out and make it a company-wide focus. You have to put it at the heart of everything. And when you succeed, the impact will be huge.