A bridge collapsed

In 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge—nicknamed "Galloping Gertie"—collapsed just four months after it opened. The cause? A phenomenon called harmonic resonance. The wind flowing through the bridge created vibrations that magnified until the entire structure tore itself apart.

The engineers hadn’t accounted for this invisible complexity. And it wasn’t just a failure of steel and design—it was a failure to truly understand the forces at play.

This story is a powerful reminder: there will always be complexities beyond our understanding. But ignoring them doesn’t make them go away.

Our job as leaders, creators, and problem solvers isn’t to oversimplify or avoid complexity—it’s to dive into it. To understand the complex so deeply that we can simplify it into something functional and meaningful.

Whether it’s building a bridge, leading a team, or designing a product, the lesson is the same:
Simplification isn’t the absence of complexity—it’s mastery over it.

What’s one complexity in your work that you need to better understand to simplify?