The design of the new IPhone 7 elegantly combines an increasingly minimalist surface design with a rich, complex world of applications. This type of elegance has recently emerged as a growing trend in the fields of architecture, product design, innovation and strategic business leadership, providing a powerful key to managing complexity and creating disruptive solutions.

But quite frankly, when I discuss the concept of elegance with business leaders, frequently all I get is a blank stare. I tell them that they quickly need to wake up to this trend, if they don't want to miss the boat. In recent years, we have seen many elegant concepts, technologies and products launched into the world markets, which have changed the way in which we live, work, and create value.

The IPhone, with its deceptively simple, elegant design and its complex, rich sub-structure completely revolutionized the world of mobile phones and hand-held devices.

The Google search engine, with its clean, uncluttered design and meaningful search results blew away most of the potential competitors.

The list of new, successfully disruptive solutions, products and technologies, which make use of the key concepts of elegance, is growing quickly. 

„So what is the secret sauce?" business executives tend to ask me.

I tell them that Swiss watchmakers can teach them a lesson about the secret of true elegance. A watch should have a surface structure which is easy to understand, allowing for intuitive navigation. But below the surface, the inner works of a truly great watch will include a "grand complication", representing the most complex achievements of watchmaking. We don't need to understand the inner works of a watch to be able to use it.  Its elegant design provides a means of articulating complexity in a way that enables easy comprehension and intuitive navigation.

In an increasingly chaotic, ever-changing world, business leaders need to manage complexity by mastering such elegant techniques, in order to make better decisions and create increased business value. Like in the design of the new IPhone 7, elegant business leadership must combine a simple management cockpit, which allows for intuitive navigation, with a rich, complex sub-structure. As in the cases of Apple, Google and many other elegant innovators, this approach will help business executives and entrepreneurs to create disruptive changes to their advantage in the markets they operate in.

Elegance combines simplicity with complexity to create game-changing solutions.