Complex·ifi·a·cation

Why People Make Simple Sh*t Complicated — And Why I’m the Antidote*

There’s a disease running through companies everywhere.
It’s not COVID, it’s not burnout, it’s not even “misalignment.”

It’s something far more annoying:

Complex·ifi·a·cation.

noun.
The act of turning something simple into a Rube Goldberg machine for absolutely no good reason.

Complexify.

verb.
What Joe in accounting does when you ask for a clean report and he sends you 14 tabs, 7 pivots, and a dashboard nobody asked for.

Complexified.

adjective.
Describes anything a committee has touched in the last 90 days.

And yes — I made the word up.

Because the sh*t I see in the wild every day needs its own vocabulary.

Why people complexify stuff

There are a few classic reasons:

1. Job security.

If no one understands it but you, you’re “essential.”
Spoiler: you’re not. You’re a bottleneck with a Gmail signature.

2. Ego.

“Oh, you wouldn’t get it. It’s complicated.”
Translation:
“I stitched together garbage in six tools and don’t want anyone to notice.”

3. Fear.

Simple is scary.
Because simple is visible.
And visible means accountable.

4. Habit.

Some people grew up inside systems where chaos = normal.
They think clarity is a trap.

5. Agency DNA.

If it’s simple, how would they bill 40 hours for it?
Next slide, please.

What Complexification Looks Like in the Wild

• A CRM with 200 properties and no revenue.

• Conversion tracking that requires a NASA launch sequence.

• A “funnel” that needs a Sherpa guide.

• A dashboard built by someone who has never sold anything.

• A 9-step onboarding for a subscription that costs $19.

• “Source of truth” debates — the dumbest phrase in marketing.

• Paid media reports that hide the only number that matters: profit.

If it looks complicated, clunky, or confusing — someone complexified the hell out of it.

My Job: The Antidote

If complexification is the disease, I’m the cure:

Distillation.

Cut the nonsense.
Remove the noise.
Boil it down to what actually moves the needle.

Or, if we’re being more Mike about it:

I de-complexify your sh*t.

I take the 27-step process and turn it into 3.
I take the spaghetti CRM and rebuild it clean.
I take your attribution arguments and eliminate them entirely.
I take the cluttered noise and turn it into revenue.
Period.

The Formula

I’ve said it a thousand times:

If it’s confusing, it’s wrong.
If it’s simple, it scales.

• Simple systems print.

• Simple workflows convert.

• Simple reporting drives decisions.

• Simple paid media works.

Simple isn’t elementary — it’s elegant.
Simple is the product of someone who actually understands the system.

Anybody can complexify.
That’s easy.
It’s what insecure people do.

Distillation?

That takes an operator.
A real one.

Final Thought

If your systems, funnels, CRM, tracking, ops, or dashboards look like a Jackson Pollock painting — congratulations. You’ve been complexified.

The good news?

I fix that.