The assumption
Complexity gets treated as a natural cost of growth — more products, more locations, more people inevitably means more moving parts, and that's just how it is.
What is actually happening
Some complexity is genuinely structural. But a large share of what organizations carry is accumulated, not necessary: processes added for a problem that no longer exists, approvals nobody remembers the reason for, reports built for a stakeholder who left two years ago.
The implication
Accumulated complexity behaves like debt. It's invisible on any single day, but it compounds, and eventually the interest payment — the coordination cost of just keeping things moving — becomes bigger than the work itself.
What to do differently
Periodically audit process, not just performance. Ask who still needs each report, each approval step, each recurring meeting. The goal isn't to remove complexity for its own sake — it's to make sure every piece is still earning its place.