Routes through Complexity

Oct 16, 2025

The Cost of the Best

I can’t afford the best of many things. Houses, hotels, hifi equipment. The best of many things I wouldn’t even want: cars, clothes, camping gear.

But, fortunately, there is one thing I do like to sample the best of. And, I can afford it. Just.

If it’s Friday as you’re reading this, I’m eating tonight at what aspires to be Melbourne’s best restaurant. It’s the just-opened 44-seat Yiagia, set in the centre of the stunning Fitzroy Gardens, inaccessible by car (only by foot).

But here’s what no one mentions about “the best”: it’s ruinously expensive to create — and maintain. Wunderkind-chef Hugh Allen needed $10m+ just to open. His three Michelin star standards require ingredient costs and labour ratios that make the business model nearly impossible. The best isn’t sustainable for most players; and that’s actually fine.

Which is why I end up saying to half my clients: stop trying to be the best.

Instead, be excellent at your specific thing, for your specific community, within your specific constraints. Be situationally exceptional. The pressure to be “best in class” or “world-leading” kills more good organisations than it inspires.

Most communities don’t need the best. They need the reliable, the accessible, the contextually appropriate. They need organisations that do one thing brilliantly rather than many things aspirationally.

I can afford one “best” restaurant experience a year. And, honestly, I’m really looking forward to tonight. But the other 364 days, I need good food I can walk to — or make at home. Both matter. Both have a place.

Question: Is your organisation trying to be the best, or trying to be exactly what your community actually needs?

Storyworthy

Sigh. We were at Slide 21 of the 40 slide deck. The presenter is reading dot points entitled ‘Methodology’. Half the room are glancing at their phones.

I’d seen enough too. So, I decided enough was enough.

At their next strategy retreat, I borrowed a format from Matthew Dick’s book, Storyworthy. I insisted that presenters use 6 Slides. No more.

Slide 1: The punchline. Your big ‘a-ha’ or takeaway.
Slide 2. The transformational moment. Skip the setup; start at the end.
Slide 3. The stakes. Tell us what is (or was) at risk, “Why this matters”.
Slides 4 - 5. The essential context. Dicks calls this Elephants and backpacks. “Elephants” are “What’s obvious that I need to acknowledge” and “Backpacks” are “What’s not obvious that I need to unpack”.
Slide 6. What you want from us. A question. A provocation. A recommendation.

That’s it. No methodology. No process explanation. (If people really want to know, they can ask you afterwards. And, I guarantee, few will).

By the fifth presentation of the day, people were still leaning forward, phones in pockets, eager to hear.

Question: How can you begin with the answer?

Navigation

For centuries, ships have bought the services of pilots: a smaller boat with a captain who knows the local shoals and currents. As a backpacker, I bought dozens of Lonely Planet guidebooks to places I’d not yet been: authors told me about the hostels with clean sheets, the kebabs that wouldn’t make me sick, the unmissable sunsets and sights.

This week, I talked with a client whose family is selling their long-running business. The market is vast: dozens of potential buyers, from private equity to corporate juggernauts to individual operators. The economics are opaque (earnouts, vendor finance, working capital adjustments). Legal structures are arcane. Timing is everything.

The family was confused. So was she. So she hired a business broker. And, she made this point to me: he wasn’t cheap.

But here’s what struck me: she wasn’t buying access to buyers (that’s available). She didn’t need legal help, or accounting advice (they had both). They were buying something else entirely: strategic sequencing. Approach these buyers first, structure the deal this way, hold this information back until that stage, time the announcement like this to maximise competitive tension.

The route through complexity is the product.

Many organisations I work with haven’t figured this out. They undervalue their own navigation expertise because they’re so focused on their “real” service. The health service focuses on procedures, not on “which practitioner you should actually see first.” The social service agency focuses on programs, not on “here’s the right pathway for your particular situation.”

Navigation is a legitimate service with its own economics. Remember that the pilots of old charged by the difficulty of the harbour, not the distance sailed.