The power of addition by subtraction
Addition by subtraction
Often, when we think about progress and improvements we think 'add'.
We add a new drill, we add a new meeting, we add a new habit, we add a new staff member, we add a new role, we add a new talking point, etc.
Addition by subtraction is a great mental model to help us think remove rather than add. This can also be known at Via Negativa.
Subtracting rather than adding does a couple of things:
It simplifies - any time you add it creates more complexity. Add a couple of things to your daily routine...you will quickly find out that adding makes things more complex and harder to sustain. Any leader will tell you that when you start adding people to your organization it creates complexities. If a program or department starts with 5 people and then grows to 15 people, that leader will feel the effects. What was once simple is now complex.
It clarifies - By subtracting content, our communication is tighter and makes more sense. I subtracted a lot when writing my book and it clarified so much for me. Think about someone giving you directions (which never happens anymore but you get my point), which direction would you prefer:
"Go south on main, turn right on 2nd street, then our house is 1.5 miles on the left."
vs.
"Go out here and when you see the 7-11 take a right. You will see a car dealership on your right and a bbq place on your left, after going past the bbq place, take that left. Go past the dentist's office, and you will come to a four-way stop. You will go through that 4 way stop and follow the road as it curves. Then take a right. Our house is next to the two-story house with a deck out front."
We have all probably done the equivalent of these directions in our conversations. We have a team meeting...we get up to talk and 4 minutes in we have lost everyone because we are all over the place in a massive ramble.
It magnifies - When you state that your program will be built on three values, as opposed to 12 values, you magnify those three values. When you focus on less, you actually do more because you are magnifying what is important. Or when you decide you are going to focus on three primary habits- eating a salad every day for lunch, 30 minutes of strength training, and incorporating a 20-minute spiritual practice every day. Pretty simple right? This increases the chances that these are reproducible... meaning you can be consistent with them every day.
What do you need to subtract from your professional life? What about your personal life?
PS. If you are familiar with minimalists...one of the exercises they do is to pack everything up in their house/apartment. Then they only unpack the things they find that they need over the next several weeks. Stripping everything that you currently do and adding the things that only make sense might be a great exercise. Or maybe just write everything down on paper that you do in a given day or week and ruthlessly eliminate anything that doesn't add value. Good luck!
Click here to order my book The Leadership Greenhouse
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One of my weekly disciplines is scouring the internet for articles/tweets I can learn from and/or use with those I work with. Below are two that I hope help encourage and equip you.
Article 1- The beauty of letting go
Article 2- Becoming yourself
Podcast: Rick Heller, Baseball coach at the University of Iowa. Awesome dude. Great leader!
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