Could we be victims of self-inflicted complexity?

by. Ann Bares

Many of us in the business of developing, implementing, managing, and fixing compensation plans believe we are doing so today in the face of increasing complexity.

Could much of this complexity be self-inflicted?

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, asserts that it is and he presents his case in an HBR blog post Our Self-Inflicted Complexity. The essence of his point is this: through hyper-specialization and aiming our efforts at increasingly narrow problems, we create the impression that we are advancing knowledge and practice in our respective fields when, in fact, we are digging ourselves into a hole. He says:

Each narrow knowledge domain develops analytical tool-sets that deepen the narrow knowledge domain. Each narrow domain develops ever more algorithmic knowledge, and those developing the knowledge are extremely confident that they are right because they are so specialized within their own domain. The liver expert is completely confident that he or she is correct even if it is the interaction with another condition that threatens your health most.

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