Ah. It’s ‘complex’, is it?

I watched Dirty Business on Channel 4 this weekend. It’s a docudrama in the same vein as Mr Bates vs The Post Office, charting the efforts of two men to hold the water industry to account for the devastation caused by its cavalier approach to dumping raw human sewage into Britain’s waterways and coastline.

Then I read some of the online reactions and commentary defending the water industry, explaining why the documentary doesn’t tell the full story, why it’s misleading, why things aren’t quite as simple as they seem.

And there it was. I knew I’d see it sooner or later.

That word.

Complex.

“It's complex” is one of those phrases that sounds reasonable. Sensible, even. Sophisticated, and, you know, grown-up.

Until you stop and look at what it’s doing to the conversation.

Because ‘complex’ rarely just means “this is difficult to understand”.

More often, it means:

➥ You don’t have the full picture

➥ There are nuances you wouldn’t appreciate

➥ There are trade-offs you might not like

And, pretty much always:

➥ Please don’t push too hard on this

Now, to be fair, some things are complex.

Infrastructure is complex. Regulation is complex. Systems built over decades, with competing priorities and constraints, are undeniably complex.

But outcomes? Outcomes are usually pretty simple.

Water is clean, or it isn’t.

People are safe, or they aren’t.

Trust is intact, or it’s gone.

And this is where the problem starts.

Because “it’s complex” is often used not to explain what’s happened, but to move the conversation away from the outcome and back into the safety and brow-mopping relief of abstraction.

Away from what people can see and feel, and back into a space where fewer questions get asked.

In one scene in Dirty Business, a local town’s business group is discussing how to respond to the adverse publicity around an eight-year-old girl’s death after a visit to their beach.

The group leader thanks the members for attending the outbreak committee meeting. One of the members immediately says, “Do we really want to call it an outbreak?”

It’s a small moment. Almost throwaway. It’s a group of people deciding how to describe their group’s purpose.

But it tells you everything.

Because that’s the point where language stops being about understanding and starts being about protection.

Nobody is asking, “What actually happened?”Or, “What does this mean for public health? Or, “How can we stop this from happening to another family?”

They’re uneasily asking, “What should we call this?”

From there, it’s a very short step to:

➥ It can’t possibly be linked…

➥ She didn’t even go in the water…

➥ We don’t want to alarm people unnecessarily…

And just like that, reality starts to shift. Not because the facts have changed, but because the language has.

You see the same thing in CEO statements after things go wrong. “Lessons have been learned.”

Often delivered with Bambi-eyed sincerity, it sounds reassuring. Accountable. Forward-looking.

But it’s also completely empty.

➥ What lessons?

➥ Who’s learned them?

➥ And what specifically will be different as a result?

If you can’t answer those questions, then ‘lessons have been learned’ isn’t an explanation. It’s a way of closing the conversation down.

None of this is new. But what has changed is how people respond to it.

Five or ten years ago, phrases like this might have been enough. Now?

People notice.

They hear ‘it’s complex’ and think: you’re avoiding telling me something.

They hear ‘lessons have been learned’ and think: nothing meaningful is going to change.

They see language being carefully managed and think: you’re more concerned about how this sounds than what actually happened.

This is where trust starts to erode.

Not just because of the original issue, but because of how it’s talked about afterwards.

There are organisations that get this right, even when the stakes are high.

When Johnson & Johnson faced a poisoning crisis linked to its products, they didn’t talk about complexity or wait for certainty.

➥ They warned the public

➥ They pulled products from shelves

➥ They were clear about the risk before they had all the answers

No softening, and no deflection. Instead, a responsible, values-led decision to put public safety ahead of reputation.

Similarly (although it wasn’t a public health crisis), when KFC ran out of chicken across the UK, they didn’t hide behind ‘supply chain complexity’ or ‘operational challenges’.

They published full-page ads in The Sun and Metro, cheekily rearranging their logo to read ‘FCK’, and apologised.

Brilliant!

➥ They named the problem

➥ They owned it

➥ And they didn’t try to hide behind language.

That’s the difference.

In moments like these, people don’t want careful wording. They roll their eyes at softened language or strategic phrasing. People can smell bull merde a mile off, and they do.

They want and expect:

➥ A clear account of what happened

➥ An honest acknowledgement of impact

➥ Specifics about what will change

➥ Visible accountability if it doesn’t

Yes, the system might be complex. But the communication shouldn’t be. 

If you can’t say, “We’ve learned this specific lesson, so here’s what’s going to happen on Monday, and here’s how we’re going to provide transparency and accountability”, there’s honestly no point in saying anything. You might as well stand at the press podium and shrug your shoulders while trying for a PB on today’s Sudoku.

➥ If you can’t explain the trade-off, don’t call it complex

➥ If you can’t say specifically what’s changing, don’t tell me lessons have been learned

➥ And if your first instinct is to rename the problem, you’re not communicating. You’re hiding.

Clarity isn’t just a skill.

It’s a choice.