America’s Crisis of Complexity: Alan Siegel’s Speech from TED 2010
How is it that we can run the country with a 16-page Constitution, yet it takes 2,074 pages and more than 400,000 words of gobbledygook to present the Senate Health Care Bill?
Washington insiders told me that if they ever passed this bill, over 40,000 pages of turgid regulations would follow before it became law in 2014.
Clearly our public officials have completely lost touch with the power of simple expression.
The social and economic costs when government fails to communicate can be considerable. When Americans can’t figure out how to complete their tax forms, apply for student loans, qualify for small business assistance, or understand their Medicare or Social Security benefits, the economy suffers, federal revenues decline, and confidence in government takes a dive.
Americans are forced to agree to credit card contracts with onerous terms that put them at risk, pay wireless phone bills with all kinds of obscure fees that make no sense, grapple with healthcare statements of benefits and bills that are gibberish.
In a survey I conducted in 2009 among homeowners and investors, three-quarters said that complexity and confusion played a major role in the financial crises we are going through. Almost two-thirds believed that financial institutions INTENTIONALLY make their documents and communications complicated to hide risks, fees, and unfair provisions. Nearly 80 percent said it was critically important for President Obama to require that every new law, regulation, and policy be expressed in plain English.
As someone who has challenged complexity for more than three decades, I sense that now is the time to convert America’s craving for clarity into a new era of openness and transparency. I’m hoping our government and business leaders don’t continue to just pay lip service to simplicity but make the investment in providing laws, regulations, documents, and official correspondence with CLARITY, TRANSPARENCY, and EMPATHY.
These two examples from my presentation at TED clearly demonstrate the power of simple expression:
One Page Credit Agreement
According to the Wall Street Journal, in the 1980s the typical credit card contract was one page. By 2000, many had up to 30 pages and added unexpected and unforeseeable terms favoring the credit card companies.
Here’s an agreement I prepared to demonstrate that President Obama’s call for a credit card contract on one sheet of paper, that is understandable to a person with a high school education, is possible if companies are unencumbered by the current maze of state and federal disclosure legislations.
This contract can be enhanced by providing an interactive, digital version with computational aids to help consumers analyze terms, and even providing an opportunity to forward questions to the issuer.
This illustration we developed demonstrating the cost to the consumer under various payment terms of a $62 dinner charge was used in a study conducted by the Harvard Business School with members of a credit union. Can you imagine your bank actually using this?
IRS Correspondence System
The IRS sends 200 million notices to taxpayers each year—many of them too difficult for taxpayers to understand. One thousand categories of notices are being replaced by a new, streamlined format and simple, direct language. Testing has shown that taxpayers readily understood these notices, and the confusion from the original letters was essentially eliminated.
These two examples demonstrate that even the most complex legal agreements and communications systems can be simplified.
Simplicity is not simple-minded or simplistic. Intuitive structure and organization, short sentences, active verbs, concrete examples, and accessible design can make complex business, legal, and government documents comprehensible and accessible.
We can ensure that we are enabling people to make informed decisions by using research to measure comprehension, accessibility, and usability.
Now is the time to make clarity, transparency, and empathy national priorities. Americans are desperate for communications from government and business that help them make informed decisions. In turn, these will help restore their trust in our public and private institutions.
We have only ourselves to blame if we continue tolerating outrageously complex and confusing practices. It’s time to replace this crisis of complexity with a covenant of clarity.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “When the subject is strong, simplicity is the only way to treat it.”
March 4th, 2010 at 3:49 am
As always Siegel has a way of brilliantly cutting through all the clutter and chaos, providing a clear directive for our policy makers and political leadership. The key question though is one of execution and accountability of course. After having served in the federal government at the State Department where there was no shortage of bright, heavily credentialled foreign policy experts, finding anyone who would be willing to in a simple, clear way explain the what, why and how they engage in diplomatic efforts was next to impossible. There is also a dominant culture in Washington where layering complexity to any issue is a way of diffusing and diverting attention and accountability at the heart of any issue. Siegel’s call for clarity and simlicity is one that I hope finally Washington will take note of. It is also a time for Washington to avail itself of experts like Siegel so we can finally move beyond the paralysis that afflicts nearly every national issue and engage the American public in a real and constructive dialogue. Simple is smart.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Great talk on the power of simple expression.
To me, it seems a clearly obvious thing to do; to approach from empathy and clarity and simplify a form.
But, why is such an obvious concept so hard to find and experience in the world?
April 2nd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Back in the 1960s Prudential Insurance Co. hired Al Schaffer from Short Hills to redesign all their paperwork so it made sense. That one man made a huge difference in what was at the time the world’s largest insurance company.
April 3rd, 2010 at 8:13 am
Great talk with brilliant examples that stick with the viewer. I’ve suggested adding clarity to my company’s corporate values for awhile and love the idea of making it part of our national priorities. As a manager I evaluate much of the work I see based on clarity- one bite at a time, I guess.