Simple Rules: How to Succeed in a Complex World

HOW SIMPLICITY TRUMPS COMPLEXITY IN NATURE, BUSINESS, AND LIFE

Complexity surrounds us. We have too much email, juggle multiple remotes, and hack through thickets of regulations from phone contracts to health plans. But complexity isn’t destiny. Sull and Eisenhardt argue there’s a better way. By developing a few simple yet effective rules, people can best even the most complex problems.

In Simple Rules, Sull and Eisenhardt masterfully challenge how we think about complexity and offer a new lens on how to cope. They take us on a surprising tour of what simple rules are, where they come from, and why they work. The authors illustrate the six kinds o f rules that really matter - for helping artists find creativity and the Federal Reserve set interest rates, for keeping birds on track and Zipcar members organized, and for how insomniacs can sleep and mountain climbers stay safe.

Drawing on rigorous research and riveting stories, the authors ingeniously find insights in unexpected places, from the way Tina Fey codified her experience at Saturday Night Live into rules for producing 30 Rock (rule five: never tell a crazy person he’s crazy) to burglars’ rules for robbery (“avoid houses with a car parked outside”) to Japanese engineers mimicking the rules of slime molds to optimize Tokyo’s rail system. The authors offer fresh information and practical tips on fixing old rules and learning new ones.

Whether you’re struggling with information overload, pursuing opportunities with limited resources, or just trying to change your bad habits, Simple Rules provides powerful insight into how and why simplicity tames complexity.

Whether you run an organization or are simply trying to survive modern life, this book is gold. Chris Anderson, curator of TED Talks

Armed with a few simple rules, you can tackle even the most complex of problems.

Drawing on more than a decade of rigorous research, Sull and Eisenhardt provide a clear framework for developing effective rules and making them better over time. They find insights in unexpected places, from the way Tina Fey codified her experience working at Saturday Night Live into rules for producing 30 Rock (rule five: never tell a crazy person he s crazy), to Japanese engineers using the foraging rules of slime molds to optimize Tokyo s rail system. This is the definitive playbook for living simply and efficiently in every sphere of life.

Simple Rules ... will help you spot unnecessary complexity, eliminate maddening frustration, make the right decisions faster, and have a whole lot more fun along way. Robert I. Sutton, best-selling author of The No Asshole Rule and coauthor of Scaling Up Excellence

We all deal with complexity now, and this book will show you how you can do more with less. Michael J. Mauboussin, head of global financial strategies, Credit Suisse

Simple Rules explains how we can manage to make meaningful progress in a world that exceeds human understanding ... This is a harbinger of the information economy to come. Steve Jurvetson, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson

A WASHINGTON POST LEADERSHIP BOOK TO WATCH FOR 2015 A BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK MUST-READ BOOK OF THE SUMMER

DONALD SULL is a global expert on strategy and execution in turbulent markets. He is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and formerly a professor at Harvard and the London Business School. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

KATHLEEN M. EISENHARDT is the S.W. Ascherman M.D. Professor of strategy at Stanford s School of Engineering and codirector of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. She is the coauthor of the award-winning book Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos and has received numerous awards for her research. She lives in Palo Alto, California."