Blog 37 - Simplifying Work Winning: Why Less Process Creates More Growth
The blog this week is from Jeremy
Simplifying Work Winning: Why Less Process Creates More Growth
Most organisations approach “improvement” the same way they approach a health kick: they add more. More steps. More checks. More forms. More governance. More meetings. More dashboards. More “best practice”.
It feels safer. It feels diligent. It feels like progress.
But as Rory Sutherland often points out, businesses have a pathological bias toward additive solutions. When something isn’t working, we instinctively bolt on another layer rather than question whether the existing layers were needed in the first place. Elon Musk frames it even more bluntly: “The most common error is adding things that aren’t needed. The second most common error is not removing things that are.”
In work winning — where speed, clarity, and client experience matter more than anything — this bias is especially destructive.
The Hidden Cost of Complexity in Work Winning
Every extra step in your process has a cost:
• It slows down decisions
• It dilutes accountability
• It creates friction for clients
• It distracts teams from the only thing that actually wins work: creating value for the buyer
Most organisations don’t lose bids because they lacked a template, a stage gate, or a RAG report. They lose because the client couldn’t see the value clearly enough, quickly enough, or confidently enough.
Complexity hides value.
Simplicity reveals it.
Why Simplicity Wins (Especially in B2B/B2G)
Clients — whether in government, construction, infrastructure or professional services — are overwhelmed. They’re navigating risk, procurement rules, internal politics and time pressure. They don’t want more information. They want certainty.
Simplicity delivers that certainty.
• A simple narrative is easier to trust
• A simple process is easier to engage with
• A simple proposal is easier to evaluate
• A simple client experience is easier to buy from
Simplicity is not the absence of rigour. It’s the removal of noise.
The Behavioural Science Behind It
Rory Sutherland’s work makes this clear: humans don’t make decisions based on perfect logic. We make decisions based on perceived ease, clarity and confidence.
A streamlined work-winning process reduces cognitive load for both your team and your client. It creates momentum. It makes your value feel obvious.
In behavioural terms, simplicity:
• Reduces friction
• Increases fluency
• Strengthens emotional reassurance
• Improves recall and narrative coherence
In commercial terms, it wins more work.
Elon Musk’s Rule: Delete Before You Optimise
Musk’s principle is brutally useful for work winning:
1. Delete any process step you can
2. If you can’t delete it, simplify it
3. If you can’t simplify it, automate it
4. Only then consider adding anything new
Most organisations do the reverse.
They add before they delete.
They automate before they simplify.
They optimise a process that shouldn’t exist.
The result?
A bloated work-winning machine that looks impressive on a slide deck but performs like a 1990s printer.
What Simplicity Looks Like in Practice
Here’s what high-performing, simplicity-led work winning actually looks like:
• A single, clear value narrative that everyone can articulate
• A short, sharp qualification process that stops wasted effort early
• A client experience that feels human, not bureaucratic
• A proposal structure that prioritises outcomes, not internal guff
• A feedback loop that improves and accelerates learning, not paperwork
• A culture that rewards clarity, not volume
The best teams don’t win because they do more. They win because they do less of the wrong things and more of the right things.
The Real Question for Leaders
If you stripped your work-winning process back to the essentials — the things that genuinely create client value — what would remain?
And more importantly:
What would you remove?
Because the organisations that win consistently aren’t the ones with the most steps. They’re the ones with the fewest barriers between the client’s need and the team’s ability to meet it.
Simplicity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive advantage.
Other Resources
We’re on a mission to help companies like yours win more work.
Here are some other free resources that should help you too. Feel also free to share them with friends and colleagues:
Bid Writing Training - Learn to write winning tenders here.
Free Bid Writing Basics Training Video - Watch the video here.
Writing Crown Commercial Services Bids - Learn to tackle the challenges of writing CCS tenders here.
The Bid Toolkit - We make winning simple.
Our free work winning Podcast, the Red Review, can be found here.
You can also follow Jeremy on LinkedIn for hints, tips and insights here.
100% Typo Guarantee—Our blog posts are free-range. It was hand-crafted with love and sent out unfiltered. There was no review queue, no editorial process, no post-post revisions. Therefore, I can pretty much guarantee that there is some sort of typo or grammatical error or literary snafu. Got a business to run and a four year old to Dad. Sorry.