The Benefits Of Using A Beautiful System

The road to freedom is a beautiful system. — Phil Jackson

I’m not one for using quotes to make a point, but I love that quote. It’s the absolute truth. I don’t care what your argument is. That quote is truth.

That doesn’t mean you can’t run a business, division, team, project, or even your personal life without a beautiful system. You absolutely can. But if you don’t have a beautiful system it takes more effort to make things work.

Many people — in tech jobs — think that a system or structure makes things bloated. At some point you’re just adding processes on top of processes for the sake of adding processes, and they’re not wrong. In some cases a structure can be too rigid and suffocating that it makes it impossible to get anything done. But that isn’t a beautiful system. That’s a broken system.

A system lays the foundation for how things will interact with each other. It provides guidance for those who use the system and transparency for those who are reliant on the work that’s done within the system.

Some might think a system makes you a prisoner or that it limits you. That’s wrong. A beautiful system is an enabler. The only people who are limited by it are those who are unwilling to use it. Or want to avoid responsibility altogether.

It takes hard work and time to build a beautiful system. But once you’ve built one the reward is total freedom.