Author unknown, from the Internet
The central theme I took away from reading “7 Powers” and now halfway through “Understanding Michael Porter” is that clarity emerges through elimination.
Both books revolve around the same truth: power comes from what you choose not to do.
In business strategy, this means knowing what not to do in order to focus on what is important for success. Trade-offs aren’t a by-product of strategy— it is the strategy.
Simplicity is not an accident. It is the result of deliberate decisions that cut out the unnecessary and reveal what matters.
This applies to various areas:
- Product development: The best products don’t aim to be everything. They aim to reduce the product to the essentials, remove unnecessary functions and sharpen the core idea. (Simplifying your product strategy is a competitive advantage)
- User interface design:The best interfaces minimize cognitive load by highlighting the core functionality. The key is to identify the “epicenter” of the experience – the most important features that users need to accomplish their tasks efficiently. (Find the Epicenter)
- Decision making: Good decisions aren’t about uncovering perfect answers. More often, they’re about eliminating the wrong ones. (Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking)
- Learning: Mastering the basics is key to effective work. The fundamentals may seem simple, but understanding them is what separates the best from the rest.
- On a personal level, “I don’t have time for this” is rarely about actual time. It’s a sign of competing priorities—my inability to agree on what’s really important.
Clarity comes from leaving out the unimportant to make room for the essential. When you know what you can ignore, you can cut through the noise and focus on your core goals.
In a world obsessed with more—more features, more information, more options—the real challenge is subtraction. It’s easy to add something. It takes courage to remove something.
As Frederic Maitland said: “Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.” It’s not about what you add, but what you leave out.