In the past year have the number of your emails, meetings, and phone calls increased or decreased?

For most people, they have increased. This type of information overload can quickly cause someone to feel overwhelmed.

When this happens, we may be dealing with complexity and confusion, and we don’t have clarity of action. This can be especially true if there are poor management habits in place from superiors.

This mindset may cause us to procrastinate on purpose, become disinterested, and decrease our internal motivation.

The solution is Subtraction.

You can increase the internal motivation of your team by removing little-to-no-value activities and responsibilities.

The process of removing the unnecessary is how Michelangelo carved the statue David.

A classic example of how companies use addition, rather than subtraction, to try and solve a problem occurs as follows: “Company A is now doing ______. So we too will now be doing _______.”

In the aforementioned example, an excellent way to start the process of subtraction for problem-solving is by asking critical questions.

  • What activities produce little value?
  • Does this activity create value at work?
  • How is this behavior important?

Internal motivation is a result of clarity, not comparison. And this clarity comes from subtraction: the art of simplifying through asking these types of critical questions.

Your team will continue to feel overwhelmed until you start asking questions that will help them get clear on their priorities and the value they contribute to your organization.

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