In Paul Watzlwick’s The Situation is hopeless but not serious he opens with a little story about the Austrians.
A once great Empire, the sheer diversity meant that agreeing on the common sensical was virtually impossible and absurdity permeated every facet of life. ‘Simple problemswere impossible and impossible problems acheievable by default’. ‘Austria loses every battle but the hopeless ones’. Sounds like planning to me, trying to do impossibly clever stuff just because that’s what planners are supposed to do.
We’ve all been guilty of it, inexplicable inability to do something perfectly good and right because it’s too simple. I suspect that many have ignored a flash of inspiration that came too early in the process.."Hold on, I haven’t thought enough about thism surely there must be more?"
Yes, very often we cannot resist the urge to muddy things with added layers of complication just because we want to be shinier, harder, looks like genius. I’m not sure last week’s Campaign helped when they argued that some of their percieved best work recently looks like it’s had no planning – like Drench, Sony Balls or the Gorilla. Simple ideas (truths?) executed very well.
What I dislike about this observation is that ‘planning’ needs to shine out of the work, it needs to look really, really, really clever. On the most frustrating things about my job is that very few people see how much you’ve left out. But that’s the job.
That doesn’t mean reducing stuff down to something dumb, or bullet hard advertising propositions, but it does mean compressing lots of good stuff into a rich, simple idea. But that’s the job. Leave your ego at the door and get on with it.
NORTHERN PLANNER 
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