Book idea: How can organisations successfully reduce complexity??

Anyone got any good examples of organisations which have substantially simplified themselves?? Because I think there’s a fascinating popular social science book waiting to written here (similar to e.g., Collapse). But, the missing piece is good case studies or examples. In the meantime, here’s the setup for I mean by complexity, and why I think it’s a real problem that we need to work out how solve, without using wars.

What is complexity and why does it matter?

Bureaucracy, red tape, inertia, gridlock, overhead, “the swamp”: these are all synonyms for what I mean by complexity. It is any process, law, role or similar that may be well intentioned, or even useful, but has the side effect of making it slightly harder to “get things done” in an organisation.

Let’s look at three examples:

1. Governments

Government complexity shows up in endless laws, regulations, and bureaucracies. Each one imposes a burden—on individuals, businesses, and government itself, in compliance costs and in the increasing proportion of society dedicated to complying with laws and regulations, both inside and outside government. Tax codes are a great example, as are means-tested social security systems: for example, in the U.S., where the process of applying for benefits often costs recipients hours of effort for a payout that equates to less than minimum wage.

2. Businesses

In businesses, complexity tends to emerge as a response to failure: something goes wrong, and a new process is introduced to prevent it from happening again. Individually, these processes seem logical—reviews, audits, change management—but over time, they layer on top of each other, slowing innovation with the organisation. This is one reason startups often outcompete large corporations: they aren’t bogged down by decades of accumulated complexity (see also some other thoughts about how startups beat corporates).

3. Social Organisations

Many social organisations—like religious groups or nonprofits—start with a clear, compelling mission. But over time, they acquire buildings, hire staff, and create processes to manage growth. Eventually, sustaining the organisation itself can overshadow the original mission, with internal politics and inertia becoming barriers to action, or even replacing the original mission of the organisation.

How complexity arises and survives

The key to understanding complexity is recognising how it arises—and why it’s so hard to get rid of. At its core, complexity often results from a mismatch between diffuse costs and concentrated benefits.

Diffuse Costs

The costs of complexity—bureaucracy, paperwork, approval processes—are spread thinly across many people. No single person feels the full burden, so there’s little incentive for any individual to push back.

Concentrated Benefits

The benefits of complexity, on the other hand, are often concentrated on specific groups. For example, a new compliance rule might create a department of specialists whose jobs depend on maintaining that rule. Or a subsidy might benefit a particular industry, which then lobbies to keep it in place. Or a specific example of something that went wrong in the past can motivate a “never again” mindset, at almost any cost.

The Result: Unavoidable complexity!

This dynamic creates three big problems:

1. No Natural Constituency for Simplicity: Few people are motivated to fight complexity because its costs are so widely dispersed.

2. Strong Pushback Against Change: Those who benefit from complexity—either directly or by avoiding past problems—resist efforts to simplify.

3. Weak Incentives for Leaders: Simplifying a system often requires expending political or organisational capital, but the benefits are diffuse and realise only in the long term, while the backlash is immediate and concentrated. Simplification seldom, in practice, wins votes.

How we have historically solved excessive complexity?

Complexity can’t grow forever—eventually, the costs outweigh the benefits, and something has to give. But history shows us that reducing complexity is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, the ways we typically “solve” complexity are themselves extreme:

In businesses or social organisations: Overwhelmed by complexity, organisations often stagnate and are replaced by younger, simpler competitors. This cycle of “creative destruction” keeps the private sector relatively nimble.

But governments are not as easily replaced—they persist. The usual solutions to government complexity are much harsher: war or revolution. Wartime often forces governments to streamline decision-making, while revolutions reset the system entirely.

This last observation leads to the key question: How can we create organisations that can reduce their own complexity? And how can we use this in government, so as not to require periodic wars or revolutions? Given that large-scale warfare is a tragedy for those involved, but also with modern weapons, an existential threat to humanity?

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What a complexity-resistant organisation look like?

This is where some really great examples and case studies would be helpful!

There are a few approaches that come to mind—though none (yet) compelling:

1. “Balanced Complexity Budget“

Similar to “balanced (fiscal) budget” requirements, governments could adopt a “complexity budget,” requiring that for every new page of law or regulation, an equivalent amount is removed. This would ensure that complexity is constrained (or allowed to grow only in proportion to, say, GDP or population size). Of course, this approach only works on forms of complexity we can measure effectively (pages of regulation), and not elsewhere.

2. Zero-Based Budgeting

In businesses, zero-based budgeting forces organisations to start their planning from scratch each year, rather than simply adding a percentage on to last year’s budget. But, in practice I’ve seldom seen this approach producing a outcome significantly different to standard budgeting.

Emerging case studies?

Two current examples come to mind, though neither is perfect:

1. Argentina

Javier Milei’s government in Argentina has undertaken massive efforts to reduce the size and complexity of the government, with dramatic effects on, for example, inflation, as well huge unhappiness (as expected) from the affected constituencies. It’s too early to tell whether these reforms will succeed, and anyway, they became possible only after years of near-total economic collapse, so hardly represent an easily-replicable approach.

2. Government Efficiency Initiatives

Efforts like the U.S. Department of Governmental Efficiency (under the Trump administration) aim to reduce regulatory complexity. However, I’m not sure there’s the political alignment in the Trump camp to make them succeed, as seen already in disagreement on the direction (more vs less) of immigration regulation and tariffs, as well as the generally rapid turnover amongst those considered Trump’s favourites.

If you can think of any compelling examples of successful complexity reduction, let’s discuss—drop your thoughts in the comments!