Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz. Leidy is a professor of engineering and architecture at the University of Virginia. He is published in the scientific journals Nature and Science. Leidy is also published in The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company.
Leidy is providing interesting lessons addressing the idea that subtraction, or the science of less is actually beneficial, especially in the COVID era. There are multiple ideas that will strike readers as important. You can certainly address the efficiency of your organizations today by removing the extra junk no longer needed to operate.
In fact, there are many efficiencies that my own organization can benefit from by adopting his less is more message.
Organizations are obviously recognized for adding incentives for good behavior, yet do not remove the obstacles that continue to exist for other employees. Especially in the COVID era, we are presented with new ideas and challenges.
However we cannot seem to be brave enough to subtract those dead ideas, policies, or procedures. Ultimately organizations continue the ‘pile it on’ approach. I am reminded of similar goals from two books by Daniel Pink: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing and last year’s popular The Power of Regret. If by chance you have read either book, then you will know how Dan and Leidy are thinking.
There are certainly strong stories that subtracting can actually address big issues impacting society. By removing a freeway in California as well as refusing to fund the apartheid system in South Africa, local communities can actually make drastic changes by simply subtracting.
Do more with less
Leidy is certainly direct and to the point: human behavior makes ‘subtract’ very difficult to achieve. In fact, your colleagues hold onto their own cultural, economic and even biological bias to resist the idea of reducing footprints. Yet, during the enormous changes all organizations are facing as COVID lingers, many indeed voice the need to somehow change.
So then, this is next step that Leidy is professing. to the surprise of many reading this book, their organization may not even consider allowing their employees to subtract as an option in their roles and responsibilities. For example, the number of pages in The Code of Federal Regulations — which lists all rules written by each federal agency — has increased by 1,800% in 70 years.
Be brave and subtract to gain more for your organization
In conclusion, Subtract should change how you see your world with less, rather than more. In fairness Leidy expands upon Subtract’s lessons to address racism and climate change. Some readers may certainly see a potential paradigm shift with Subtract. In fact, I hope some will. I believe this is a very worthy read.