Raise your hand if, over the course of your professional life, you’ve never used the expression “office for the complication of simple things” when referring to someone else. The complexity that suffocates organizations, slows down processes, and wears people out is not inevitable. it is often a cultural and psychological construction, one that can be traced back to simplicity.
Marco Sampietro and Alexander Maximilian Hiedemann, in their Inutilmente complicato. Come semplificare le organizzazioni (e le nostre vite) (Uselessly Complicated. How to Simplify Organizations and Our Lives, Franco Angeli, 2025, in Italian), reassess simplicity not as trivialization, but as a conscious choice of what generates value and unleashes productive energy.
The book follows a path that begins with recognizing complexity as an everyday experience and moves toward identifying the levers to reduce it. After distinguishing between “inevitable” and “manageable” complexity, the authors identify the “most panicked ones,” the agitators of complexity, and show how attitudes, procedures, and habits can make organizations prisoners of a labyrinth of rules and hierarchies. The final part of the book offers concrete tools and approaches to foster a culture of “intelligent” simplicity, applicable both in personal life and in professional settings.
Sampietro and Hiedemann reflect on a tendency deeply rooted in many managerial environments, the tendency to reward apparent sophistication: a form of self-absolution that justifies inertia and masks the fear of change. Dismantling this culture of complication means equipping oneself with new lenses capable of seeing simplicity as both a discipline and a strategy, not as a superficial reduction.
Inutilmente complicato is a valuable book for managers, entrepreneurs, public administrators, and professionals who feel the burden of excessive procedures, meetings, and unnecessary rules. But it is also a universal invitation to pause and ask oneself: “Am I adding useless complication, or truly seeking a better solution?” A simple gesture, but a profoundly transformative one.
- Publisher: Franco Angeli
- Publication date: 2025
- Pages: 132
- ISBN/EAN: 9788835172536
- Format: Print, E-Pub, PDF
MARCO SAMPIETRO, Associate Professor of Practice in Leadership, Organization and Human Resources at SDA Bocconi School of Management, is Director of the Project Management and Design Thinking and Agile courses at Bocconi University.
ALEXANDER MAXIMILIAN HIEDEMANN is Lecturer in Government, Health and Not for Profit at SDA Bocconi School of Management.
