#410 – July 13, 2025

Strategies Focused on Doing Less

Hello, fellow strategists!  Crafting effective strategy often means making tough calls — not just about what to pursue, but also what to stop, avoid, ignore or decline.  In this issue, we delve into the power of doing less but better: from applying subtractive thinking in strategy to intentionally saying “no”, harnessing grit, managing the leap to leadership, and zeroing in on what you can control. Enjoy!

 

Quick Takes

Focus on Your Internal Locus of Control

Be aware of your mindset when you’re at a testing point in your life or career. When you respond, where is your focus?

The psychological concept of Locus of Control was first introduced by Julian Rotter in 1954. As Sahil Bloom explains in the Curiosity Chronicle, it describes how people perceive the causes of events in their lives.

Those that view the Locus of Control as external believe the outcomes they get are determined by forces outside their control. (This has been linked to learned helplessness, victim mentality, and challenge avoidance.)

Those seeing the Locus of Control as internal believe that, through effort, focus and attitude, they have agency over their outcomes. (This has been linked to greater resilience, improved mental health, lower stress levels, higher achievement, and proactive problem-solving.)

Bloom suggests these questions to help concentrate on your Internal Locus:

• What part of this situation is within my control?
• What’s one tiny action I can take right now?
• If my best friend were facing this, what advice would I give them?
• How would my ideal self show up in this moment?
• How can I create space to separate myself from this situation?

 

Say “No” Using Time, Concern and Boundary Rules

Most of us strive to protect our time and stay focused on priorities. The ability to strategically decline requests for your time or assistance is crucial:  It’s nice to please people, but often you have to say “no”. Nevertheless, it’s one thing to set boundaries and another to communicate them.

You can always just say no. But this Work-Life with Adam Grant podcast (on Ted.com) offers three practical tips on how to say no effectively while preserving professional relationships and maintaining focus.

• Establish and reference guidelines set up in advance for declining a request: Frame your refusal in terms of a pre-existing principle rather than personal aversion. By explaining your standing boundaries and how you manage your time and project capacity, you depersonalize the rejection for the person asking.
• Convey care and concern for the asker: When declining (“sorry, but my plate is full”), offer alternative solutions or relevant referrals to others who might be able to help. This conveys a willingness to assist and collaborate within appropriate boundaries, even when your direct involvement isn’t feasible, transforming the emotional tone of “no” into one of partnership and resourcefulness.
• Deliberate before you respond: Resist the impulse to respond immediately, especially in person. (One study found that people were 34 times more likely to say yes face-to-face than by email.) Taking time to process a request, particularly if you then respond by email, allows for more intentional decisions, free from the immediate pressure of an in-person ask. This practice also reinforces your boundaries for appropriate engagement and use of your time and resources.

 

Three Tips for Navigating the Jump to Leader

Melody Wilding, an executive coach and professor, suggests three prime areas for a change in focus if you’re Navigating the Jump from Manager to Executive:

Going from Expert to Coach
Your job is no longer to be the smartest person in the room, but to grow your managers into independent decision-makers. Ask them to identify the real challenges to be met, options to be considered, and their recommendations for action.

Moving from Execution to Achieving Impact through Others
You may have to loosen your grip on that comforting sense of knowing exactly what is happening on the ground. When you’re providing leadership for multiple teams, your role shifts to cultivating conditions where good work can happen without your direct involvement.

Supporting Oversight With Scalable Systems
The volume of information coming at you may double or triple. Without proper mechanisms in place, you may drown in details or miss critical issues entirely. Wilding suggests identifying three to five priorities or risks you must stay closest to and establishing clear guardrails for your managers when you delegate the rest.

 

8020Info Spotlight:

“Subtractive” Strategies for Efficiency and Resilience

Like many decision-makers, you may be in a position where you need to consider “subtractive” actions such as cutting costs, streamlining operations, and eliminating waste.

Harvard Business Review recently spotlighted “In Turbulent Times, Consider “Strategic Subtraction“, where the authors argue subtractive actions can be a powerful way to adapt to evolving pressures, situations and conditions. But such actions can turn out to be shortsighted if the goal is only to improve efficiency at the cost of other objectives.

Remember Three Interrelated Goals:

Rather than making indiscriminate cuts, strategic subtraction can help you innovate in a way that positions your organization around three interrelated performance goals:

• Efficiency (minimizing resources, time and effort).  
• Resilience (adapting to disruptions and maintaining core functions).
• Prominence (ensuring visibility and appeal for stakeholders).

Applying Subtractive Thinking:

Vijay Govindarajan, Daniel Finkenstadt and Tojin Eapen go on to suggest a few ways to apply subtractive thinking while meeting those underlying goals for efficiency, prominence and resilience. They include:

• Elimination: Remove components, steps, or options (selectively or entirely).
• Consolidation: Combine multiple functions into streamlined solutions with fewer moving parts.
• Substitution: Replace complex, resource-intensive processes with simpler alternatives.
• Pausing: Temporarily suspend components of your process, service or system. (You can reactivate those features when conditions change.)
• Hiding: Streamline processes by skipping non-essential elements of the workflow — tuck them away, while still retaining access to the functionality if needed in the future. You might also create a smooth, easier-to-use interface to shield users, clients or staff from experiences that entangle them in complexity.

With pressures on budgets today, you may be considering how to eliminate a redundant task or pause a low-impact project. Rather than asking your team how to improve a process by adding new elements, ask how the same result can be achieved with fewer steps, features, or constraints.

 

For Your Reading List:  Grit

In this classic, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, psychologist Angela Duckworth challenges the belief that talent alone can guarantee success. Drawing on research, personal stories and interviews with high achievers, she shows how passion and sustained effort matter more. The author explains that grit and character can be developed to overcome obstacles, push through challenges and achieve long-term goals, offering practical insights for leaders, learners, and anyone facing tough odds.

 

Closing Thought:  Nothing Less

“Your garden is not complete until there is nothing else you can take out of it.”
— a Japanese saying noted by FS Brain-Food.