Field Notes

Quantum computing is predicted to change the world as much, if not more, than artificial intelligence. 

But the concept of quantum computing (what it is and how it works) is extremely complex and difficult to grasp for many people. 

Let’s use it to show how the best leaders make the complex simple. 

And this is a skill anyone can learn. 

To make the complex simple, good leaders immediately connect the complex idea to something familiar. Familiarity anchors new understandings and reduces the effort it takes to grasp a complex idea. 

Using an analogy familiar to almost any audience, a leader can explain quantum computing like this: Classical computers open doors one at a time, they look inside, close the door, and then move on to the next door. 

A quantum computer opens all the doors at once, checking everything inside at the same time, and then tells you which door has the answer you’re looking for. 

Opening doors one at a time is fine for simple problems, but opening them all at once is transformative for discovering new solutions no one has ever thought of before. 

Here’s another familiar anchor to make the idea more accessible: Imagine you’re in a library and trying to find one sentence hidden somewhere in the building. 

A traditional computer picks up one book at a time, opens it, flips through the pages looking for the sentence, and then moves to the next book. 

A quantum computer reads all the books and pages simultaneously and finds the sentence instantly. 

Problems with enormous numbers of possibilities are solved much more quickly by checking every possibility all at once. 

Great communicators also rely upon visual metaphors to make the complex simple. Visuals stick with people long after they hear an explanation because they organize the complex idea into something shareable. 

The complexity of quantum computing can be made more understandable with visual metaphors. 

For instance, a classical computer views a problem with one mirror and one reflection. If you want to see the problem from a different angle, you must move your position and look again. 

Quantum computers are a hall of mirrors. You instantly see the problem from dozens of angles all at once. Each reflection is another possibility. 

Describe what you are looking for, and the quantum computer selects the ideal image or solution to the problem. 

Consider another visual: A musician writing a new song sits down at a piano and plays one note at a time, and then builds on it to create a new melody. 

Now imagine the same musician sits down at the piano and presses one key, and the piano plays every possible note, chord, and harmony that the musician could think of and selects the song they would like the most. That’s what a quantum computer can do. 

The point is not that the examples offered work perfectly to explain quantum computing. But the approach is how great communicators transform the complex into a more accessible and simple form. They utilize familiar connections and visual metaphors to connect what people already know to what they want them to understand. 

The complex loses its impenetrability when leaders give people something they already know and can see.