Up-Close with Chin Teik: The Act of Subtracting

Up-Close with Chin Teik: The Act of Subtracting

This is a key leadership capability to make organizations more human. For some reason, people in organizations, have learned to say yes and believe that they have no power to say no or to negotiate.  I call it the Vicious Cycle of Yes. 
The employees' plates are overflowing with too many ideas or tasks from the top down, impacting:

• Cognitive focus and slow and deep thinking for complex problem solving
• Mental, physical and emotional well-being
• Poor execution impacting customers and business results

The vicious cycle of Yes, has led managers to forget and assume that the employees have limitless cognitive and physical capacities to do everything at the same time.

Listen to my podcast to learn the 7 steps in the Act of Subtracting, including the Power of No. 

Thank you for listening. Be well. 

Transcript

The Act of Subtracting

 A key disciplined leadership requirement for Clarity for focused Execution is to deprioritize on a regular basis. I call it the act of subtracting. It is easy to overlook this capability due to the expedient bias and the assumption that the employees’ mental and physical capacities are endless to do everything at the same time. As a result of the unconscious bias and the assumption, the employees’ plates constantly overflow with the manager’s great ideas and urgent priorities leading to cognitive overload, mental and physical stress, and poor execution. 

 From the Eisenhower Matrix of important, urgent, not important, not urgent, pause to reflect on how much time you are spending on Do, Schedule, Delegate and Delete. If you are not spending time to delete, you will not have time to schedule the important/not urgent like developing staff, That means you will not be able to delegate. 

 Two challenges that subtracting helps with:

1. Employees (including middle managers) are not able to say ‘no’ for fear of being viewed as not committed and/or incapable of doing more. I call that habit the vicious cycle of Yes. When employees (including middle managers) say yes to everything asked for, the senior management assumes that the employees have limitless mental and physical bandwidth, and they keep adding.
2. Due to challenge one, managers forget how much is already on the employees’ plates and often keep adding in the name of ‘urgency’ or ASAP.

 How to Subtract (Delegate or Delete) 

1.     The Power of No. Give people the permission to say ‘no’ with the right justification and data. You have no idea the freedom you will provide to your employees, when you give permission to say ‘no’. Saying ‘no’ with options allows for the pause in the default part of the brain and to re-think priorities as well as the employees’ capabilities, mental and physical capacities.

a.       “People think focus means yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundreds of good ideas. You have to pick carefully.” – Steve Jobs

1. Know the why to the how in terms of the vision, prioritized strategies (should only be three), and key outcomes. This will allow subtracting if the why is not clear or if there is no ROI. 
2. 20:80 Rule for Focused Impact: The principle of 20% effort, 80% impact.  Measure in terms of time spent on the impact of each assignment or project to determine the bigger to the lesser impact – then start with the bigger impact first
3. Plan with Process Time. Understand the process time required to meet the deadline – to balance reality with hope
4. Plan with Process Time. Understand the process time required to meet the deadline – to balance reality with hope
5. 95:5 Rule. Identify the key barriers to success and determine how much control you and your staff have & identify the key stakeholders who have control on the barriers that you and your staff have no control on
    
   • Stress is trying to control what you can’t control 
   • Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result 
   • Accept the 95:5 Rule – 95% no control, 5% control. 
6. Use the Eisenhower matrix of important and urgent – to prioritize precious time on things that matter
7. Stop the BFN (busy for nothing). Stop forming teams to find a problem. Identify the prioritized gaps, then form the right project team. 

 Thank you for pausing from your busyness to listen to my language - The Act of Subtracting. I hope that you will pause and consider trying out the steps of subtracting.