How Financial Independence and Effective Communication Produce Success

You don’t have to be perfect if you use a systems approach.

JD Solomon
2 min readNov 10, 2023
Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps and JD Solomon’s FINESSE are examples of systems thinking.

Systems thinking is essential for effective communication. A system is a collection of interrelated parts that produce something that the parts, acting independently, cannot produce themselves. Financial independence and effective communication produce success more easily when a systems-based approach is used.

Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps as an Example

Do you want financial independence? Like FINESSE is to communication, Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps offers a step-by-step progression for effectively building wealth. Each baby step (parts) must be done because none of the parts can produce financial independence by themselves. But do these six — and only these six — and the desired outcome will be achieved.

The Parts Don’t Have to be Perfect

Now, a corollary is that all the parts do not have to be perfect. In other words, you don’t have to have exactly $1,000 for a starter emergency fund or exactly 15% of your household income in your retirement account. Doing all of the part reasonably well is the key.

A Cause-and-Effect Approach

So, FINESSE is a cause-and-effect approach for effective communication based on systems thinking. The seven components of FINESSE work together to produce effective communication.

The Benefit for Technical Professionals

All the parts must work together, but it is not necessary for each part to be perfect. So that gives us hope, especially for technical professionals. It means that you don’t have to be the most articulate. Or the most attractive, or even the smartest, to be an effective communicator. You just need to have the seven components of finesse working together as a system.

Putting the Communication System into Action

So, the big takeaway is effective communication doesn’t mean everything has to be perfect. It means you have to trust your system. That means you have to trust the approach that you elect to do. And more than anything else, don’t sweat the perfection of every part.

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