Productivity Or The Art Of Doing Less To Getting More

What is best for kids to learn how to bike? Should they learn on a balance bike or a bike with training wheels?

As a child, I learnt with training wheels. But nowadays, I see balance bikes everywhere. And so I curiously wondered why.

It turns out experts say it is easier for kids to learn to bike with a balance bike1. The reason is they can learn to balance and steer first and later add the pedalling movement. Training wheels balance the bike but don’t help them learn this skill2.

More interestingly, training wheels were used as early as 1949 but balance bike, which is a superior learning method, only ramped up in the late nineties.

So, why did it take us about 50 years to figure out this?

The answer highlights one of our cognitive biases and has profound implications on our ability to problem-solve and productivity.

Researchers at the University of Virginia found that people systematically overlook subtractive changes when looking for a solution3. That means that we unconsciously favour “adding something” over “removing something” to problem-solve.

Children have an issue with balance when learning to bike; let’s add some stabilisers! Or maybe we could remove the pedals.

Sometimes removing an element gives better results than adding one. And this applies to bikes and many other areas.

If you are a designer, you probably heard the motto: “Less is more”. One of the best examples is to compare overcrowded Yahoo and minimalist Google search engine home pages.?

In January 2006, Google accounted for 41.4% of the global search market, and Yahoo 28.7%?. It is now 85.5% for Google and 2.8% for Yahoo?.?

Less can be more, or as the famous writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry perfectly laid it down in his book Terre des Hommes, “A poet knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.

Indeed, this is why during my workshops with executives and team leaders, I like to explore the idea that they should remove barriers instead of adding incentives to improve performance.??

My Latest Inspiration

Another outstanding leadership example where removing prevails over adding comes from the company Lego and its CEO, J?rgen Vig Knudstorp.

Lego was near bankruptcy when he took the company’s reins in 2004.?

Lego had diversified massively to fight the emergence of video games and a new generation of robotic toys. It kept adding new activities to generate growth and revenues, but it didn’t have the expected results. In fact, it almost led to its destruction.

According to Vig Knudstorp, Lego was oblivious of one of the golden rules of business: that most companies do not die from starvation but indigestion.

Lego had lost focus on its raison d'être, on what made the company truly unique - the ability to build anything you can imagine with your own hand easily.

So, rather than chasing new opportunities, Vig Knudstorp and his teams shut down activities unrelated to the core business. They opted to increase productivity over growth and were able to restore profitability.

Instead of adding the training wheels, they remove the pedals to find balance. And once the financial situation stabilised, they looked at expanding again (Lego movie anyone?).?

As proof of their success, Lego turnover has been roughly multiplied by ten since 2004, going from 0.8 to 7.44 billion euros?.

A New Challenge

So, how can we overcome our natural tendency to add rather than remove??

Having a mindset shift and rewiring the way we think does not come overnight, but we can slowly learn to approach things differently.

To do so, I suggest that every week, you create a “To Leave List”. Contrary to the famous “To Do List”, this is a list of things you should stop doing. Things you should leave. Things you should remove from your personal or professional life.

For instance, should you always prepare and lead meetings as a manager? Or could you stop doing it to free your time? Put this on your “To Leave List”, then delegate and empower one of your collaborators to do it.

I’m keen on knowing what you will put on your list. Reply to this article to share your ideas with me.

Thank you for reading this article. If you like it, please share it!?

To your success,

Lison

_______________

How Can I Help You??

• With keynotes and workshops to boost engagement, improve wellbeing and increase team performance. If this is of interest to your company, book a call here to know more => Keynote And Workshop Call
• With a 4-month executive coaching program to foster your growth. To know more, book a call with me => Coaching Call
• With my first book Act Before You overThink to learn how to make better decisions faster and liberate your mind from the constant chatter that hinders your potential. You can buy it here => Purchase Link ?

_______________

Sources:

[1]- Gay Jason, "Welcome to the Tour de France of Toddler Racing" , The Wall Street Journal (2017), accessed June 2022

[2]- Athavaley Anjali, "Look Ma, No Pedals! --- Ditch the Training Wheels, New Bikes Promise a Faster Way to Learn" , The Wall Street Journal (2010), accessed June 2022

[3]- Adams Gabrielle S., and others, “People systematically overlook subtractive changes”, Nature (2021)

[4]- ZDNet Editors, “Search engine market shares in Jan 2006: Google - 41.4%, Yahoo! - 28.7, MSN - 13.7%”, ZDNet.com (2006), accessed June 2022

[5]- Johnson Joseph, “Worldwide desktop market share of leading search engines from January 2010 to January 2022”, Statista.com (2022), accessed June 2022

[6]- Tighe D., “Revenue of the LEGO Group from 2003 to 2021”, Statista.com (2022), accessed June 2022