Nonprofit Leaders: There is a powerful underutilized strategy for improving your organization's work. The act of Subtraction.


That is right, growth can be driven by subtracting rather than adding programs.

Leidy Klotz in his new book, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, introduces the idea that we add by default to make things better, but we can be strategic about what we subtract, to achieve better results.

When I worked at an education innovation organization, one of the founders consistently focused our strategic planning process on pruning programs and activities that were no longer serving us, in order to sharpen our focus on key programs. It was difficult for the team to resist the urge to add new programs first.

Subtraction is not the same as just not doing something. Rather it is an action. Consider where you might reduce, simplify, take off something in order to reveal its essence.

Subtracting is a really important strategy for systems improvement, sometimes it can be the better option because it reduces tension in the system.

Now You: Have you ever subtracted instead of added to create growth?

#strategy #nonprofit #nonprofitleadershp #growth #planning #culture #education #LeidyKlotz #Subtraction