In a Complex World How Do You Minimize, Maximize or Optimize Anything? You can't!

When reading business articles and marketing material, I have a problem with words like maximize, minimize, and optimize. In a complex world:

• How do you maximize the return on investment?
• How do you minimize staff turnover?
• How do you optimize team performance?

How do you ever know if you’ve maximized, minimized, or optimized anything? You can’t. All you can do is measure whether things have increased or decreased. Significantly or otherwise.

• “Simple strategies to maximize profit” should read “Simple strategies to increase profit.”
• “The best ways to minimize cost overruns” should read “The best ways to reduce the cost of overruns.”
• “How to optimize employee performance.” should read “How to improve employee performance.”

You can optimize a machine but you cannot optimize a complex system.

Furthermore, in a complex environment, what are the not so readily apparent unintended consequences of your actions?

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