The Lesson Missing From Excel Education
By Hiran de Silva
There is a simple demonstration I often run using a model I call Friends Expenses.
At first glance, it looks harmless enough. Six friends are planning a trip to London. They must record shared expenses, track contributions, and reconcile who owes what at the end of the journey.
It appears to be a straightforward Excel exercise.
In reality, it exposes one of the most important — and least discussed — distinctions in modern spreadsheet work:
the difference between document thinking and systems thinking.
The Spreadsheet as a Document
Most Excel users approach spreadsheets as documents.
A spreadsheet is seen as a file — something created, edited, saved, and passed around between people. This assumption is so deeply embedded that few people even realise they are making it.
Under this mindset, the Friends Expenses challenge quickly becomes difficult.
Six people must work both independently and collaboratively at the same time. Each participant needs autonomy, yet everyone must contribute to a single shared outcome.
When treated as a document, the spreadsheet struggles under these demands.
Users attempt familiar solutions:
- multiple versions circulating by email,
- shared files with accidental overwrites,
- increasingly complex formulas,
- manual consolidations,
- protective rules and controls layered on top of the workbook.
The more effort applied, the more fragile the solution becomes.
What should be simple collaboration turns into administrative friction.
The problem appears technical.
It is not.
It is conceptual.
Changing the Question
The turning point comes when the problem is reframed.
Instead of asking:
How do we build a better spreadsheet?
We ask:
What system is required to achieve the outcome?
This subtle change transforms everything.
The spreadsheet stops being the centre of the solution.
Instead, it becomes one component within a wider process.
Data is managed centrally.
Individuals interact independently.
Collaboration happens naturally rather than artificially.
Each person works separately, yet the collective result remains consistent and controlled.
The spreadsheet is no longer a document.
It functions as part of a system.
A Contrast That Needs No Debate
When both approaches are demonstrated side by side, the reaction is strikingly consistent.
There is no argument.
No divided opinion.
Observers immediately recognise the difference.
The document-based solution feels messy, constrained, and fragile.
The system-based solution feels smooth, intuitive, and scalable.
The contrast is not subtle.
It is obvious.
One approach fights the requirement.
The other fulfils it effortlessly.
The Invisible Gap in Excel Training
Here lies the surprising part.
Despite the enormous volume of Excel training available today — tutorials, certifications, online courses, social media demonstrations — almost nothing explicitly teaches this distinction.
Excel education overwhelmingly focuses on features:
new functions,
automation tricks,
visual demonstrations of capability.
These are often spectacular to watch.
But they answer a different question.
They show what Excel can do, not how problems should be framed.
As a result, professionals are trained to think inside the spreadsheet rather than beyond it.
They learn tools without learning architecture.
Why the Hard Way Becomes the Default
Because systems thinking is rarely presented, most professionals never consider it.
When collaborative challenges arise, the instinctive reaction is to solve everything inside a single workbook.
More formulas are added.
More complexity is introduced.
More effort is required.
And when the solution becomes unwieldy, the conclusion is often that Excel itself is inadequate.
Yet the failure does not lie with Excel.
It lies in applying document thinking to a systems problem.
Seeing the Two Worlds for the First Time
For many people encountering the Friends Expenses demonstration, it is the first time they have seen the two approaches contrasted directly:
- Spreadsheet as Document
- Spreadsheet as System
Once viewed together, the difference becomes unmistakable.
The discussion shifts away from formulas and features toward outcomes and design.
The key question becomes:
Are we solving a document problem, or a system problem?
That single question changes how Excel is used — and how business problems are approached.
Beyond Features
Modern Excel possesses extraordinary capabilities. New functions, dynamic tools, and automation features continue to expand what is possible.
Yet the greatest transformation available to spreadsheet users does not come from learning another feature.
It comes from learning how to think differently.
Systems thinking recognises that spreadsheets are often interfaces to processes rather than containers of work themselves.
When problems are approached this way, collaboration becomes easier, complexity reduces, and solutions scale naturally.
The breakthrough is not technological.
It is architectural.
The Lesson Waiting to Be Taught
The absence of systems thinking from mainstream Excel education explains why many organisations continue to struggle with collaborative spreadsheet challenges.
People are not lacking skill or intelligence.
They simply have never been shown the alternative.
The Friends Expenses demonstration reveals a truth hiding in plain sight:
The real evolution in Excel is not moving beyond spreadsheets.
It is moving beyond document thinking.
When spreadsheets are understood as parts of systems rather than isolated files, Excel stops being a limitation.
It becomes an enabler of collaboration, clarity, and control.
And for many professionals, seeing that distinction for the first time feels less like learning a new technique — and more like discovering an entirely new way to work.
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