September 22, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, James Taylor speaks with Dr. Leidy Klotz, engineer, designer, behavioral scientist, and author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less. Klotz reveals why our brains are biased toward adding complexity—and why the smartest solution is often to remove, reduce, or simplify.
From Lego bridges and Jenga-inspired problem solving to organizational strategy and sustainability, Klotz shows how subtraction can fuel innovation, improve decision-making, and create more meaningful lives. Learn why leaders struggle to showcase competence by doing less, how subtraction improves team morale, and why sustainability, education, and design sectors are embracing the power of removal.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by too many meetings, endless features, or bloated systems, this conversation will inspire you to see less as progress, not sacrifice.
Key Takeaways
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Our brains default to adding, not subtracting — but subtractive thinking can create elegant and effective solutions.
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Visible subtraction matters — leaders must model it for teams to feel empowered to simplify.
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Sustainability thrives on subtraction — less packaging, less waste, less complexity equals more progress.
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Subtraction boosts morale — removing tasks or meetings frees up mental energy and creativity.
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Simple rituals help — swap to-do lists for stop-doing lists, or remove one recurring meeting to reclaim focus.
Timestamps
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00:00 – Introduction to Dr. Leidy Klotz and Subtract
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01:49 – Why addition isn’t always the answer
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04:08 – The Lego bridge story: A child’s insight into subtraction
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07:00 – Why subtraction feels harder than addition
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09:54 – The visibility problem: How leaders can model subtraction
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13:39 – Subtraction in leadership: examples from Steve Jobs and Capital One
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16:14 – Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a powerful subtractive design
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19:56 – Marie Kondo, “omit needless words,” and joyful subtractions
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21:47 – Innovation vs. exnovation: why patents rarely focus on subtraction
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Today I'm joined by Dr.
Lydie Klotz, an engineer, designer, and behavioral scientist whose work challenges adeep-seated bias in how we think and act.
His book, Subtract, the untapped science of less, flips our default impulse to add ontoits head, showing how sometimes the smartest move is actually to remove.
(00:30):
I mean, that's a weird way of writing that.
Sorry, let me just go again.
I'll re-start that.
Smartest.
smartest move is actually to...
to re-move.
You gotta hit the...
Well, I don't know, I mean, or you can leave it settle.
I thought it was good.
Anyway.
(00:51):
fine.
I'll go again.
Don't worry.
Okay.
Today I'm joined by Dr.
Lydie Klotz, an engineer, designer, and behavioral scientist whose work challenges adeep-seated bias in how we think and act.
His book, Subtract, the Untapped Science of Less, flips our default impulse to add ontoits head, showing how sometimes the smartest move is to remove.
(01:17):
He supports this with experiments from Lego models to freeway demolitions andinterventions from Jenga-inspired thinking to stop doing lists.
Subtract is a rare blend of science, strategy, and design perfect for listeners wonderinghow to simplify systems, sharpen decisions, and lead more intentionally.
Lydie Klotz, welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
(01:40):
Thanks for having me, James.
That was great.
I love the smartest move is to remove.
That's like one I haven't thought of it, but that's, it's very memorable.
mean, I caught it.
So that's great.
of little bit of alliteration there.
Now you've come from these different, these worlds of engineering, architecture,behavioral science.
tell us what professional or personal moment first made you suspicious that additionwasn't always the answer.
(02:07):
And I mean, one of the stories I tell in the book is, mean, I remember my summer job wasmowing grass and I would do it.
I did it for my parents and then I eventually did it for this guy who owned all theproperty in town.
And I remember that gives you a lot of time to think, right.
And about all these deep questions.
And one of the questions I had was like, why am I
(02:28):
why is there all this grass here that seems to only exist for the purpose of me mowing it,right?
And em so it's just something that I've always noticed as a uh person interested in tryingto change things from how they are to how we want them to be, right?
um And whether that's through engineering or design or education, that's as professionals,all of us are engaged in that in some way.
(02:54):
And you kind of see that there's
I didn't conceptualize it as subtracting at first, but I did notice these opportunitieswhere, oh, things are actually better because there's less.
um Whether it's the not having to mow grass or whether it's a really neat modernistbuilding that has clean lines and all these examples.
(03:18):
you were just talking about that and I'm looking out as I'm recording this just now I'mlooking at the grass that I have to go and mow probably after this call but we had a guest
on Dr.
Joseph Gibelli who was talking about, we had this conversation about boredom and thebenefits of boredom sometimes because we live in this know 24-7 like base switched on
(03:39):
world and he said you know sometimes we just have to like disconnect and be a bit boredand that's where some of those ideas start
bubbling to the surface as well.
So in this world that we're in just now, which often has more features, more complexity,more choices, you chose to explore in your work kind of subtle removal.
So was there a project or an industrial trend that convinced you that subtraction wasactually something that urgently needed to be attended to?
(04:08):
I I was seeing these trends the same way you are.
And I love how you connected, like, you know, went from the physical world of lawn mowingto the mental world of boredom, right?
And, or just, you know, idleness or, you know, I'm sure the people who are listening tothis are familiar with the idea that, you know, you get away from your screen and stop
trying to do work and you go for a run and that's when the idea comes, right?
(04:31):
And, you know, so there are all these examples.
I think if, if anything helped me,
crystallized the idea that then became the research in the book.
It was just playing Legos with my son.
And we played a lot of Legos.
um But one particular time we were
building a bridge and he was three.
And uh the basic problem we had was that the bridge wasn't level and the bridge.
(04:52):
So one of the support columns was shorter than the other support column.
So I'm the dad and I have my engineering background.
It's going to come in handy here, right?
I reached behind me to grab a block to add to the shorter column.
But by the time I had turned back around with the block, my son had removed a block fromthe, from the longer column and made the level bridge by taking away.
(05:13):
And so
Whereas all these other examples, I was kind of like focusing on the end state of like uhstreamlined building or boredom.
This was like, okay, there's uh a step here.
There's an action that has to happen, which is to take away from what's already there.
um And that's subtracting.
(05:34):
And, you the Legger bridge has proven such a useful example, because we've we've sincedone a ton of research to kind of see how our brain thinks about this and
it does is very similar to what happened to me in that moment, which is, okay, we've gotthis thing that we want to make better, which is in this case, it's a unlevel bridge.
In other cases, it's like we want to have innovation.
(05:55):
We want to come up with an idea.
We want to make our organization work more smoothly.
um And our first thought is what can we add to it, right?
To make it better.
And then we add and move on without even considering this whole other
class of options and that's why sometimes the the smartest move is to remove.
yeah.
(06:17):
It's funny because as you were talking about that I was just thinking there was a video Isaw a little while ago of the actor Michael Caine and he was talking about the first time
he got into uh film making, being a movie star from being a theatre actor and so he wouldgo on he did his first thing and the actor, the director said cut and he just the actor
(06:37):
came the director came up to Michael Caine said less, little bit less and he goes nexttake a gain, try again, stop!
The director comes out, no, less, less.
And he does it a third time, no, no, less, less, I want you to do less.
And Michael Caine said, listen, if I do any less, I won't be doing anything.
(06:58):
And the director said, exactly.
So why does it sometimes feel that subtraction is almost kind of harder?
it a cultural thing, we glorify accumulation, or is it?
economic or is it just the way that our brain works we all always want to
(07:18):
a little bit of both all and I think so the first part is that yeah that is how our brainworks right that our brain immediately thinks to add and that's the default so you know
you're we're we have these biases and these mental shortcuts that make it so that you knowit generally serves us well to think of adding first and then move on and that just
(07:43):
relieves cognitive load to not have to think about subtracting.
Of course, we can think about it.
I mean, we're talking about it right now and you can remind yourself to think about it.
And then you have this world where it's, really hard to show kind of competence throughsubtracting, right?
It's, it's very often hard to show that you're doing a good job if you take somethingaway.
(08:05):
Um, and that, you know, that has
roots in just like what we value in society.
And, you know, sometimes people will be like, well, this is just an American thing, right?
But it's, it's actually very like animal thing.
uh Where, uh what my favorite example for this is the bowerbirds.
And these are the birds that build ceremonial nests.
So the male bowerbird builds a ceremonial nest.
(08:28):
um And then the female bowerbirds go around looking at the nests and decide to mate.
decide which male to mate with based on which nest they like the best, um which kind ofmakes sense so far.
But then the female bowerbird goes and builds a nest to raise and shelter the young.
So the whole point of the first male-billed nest is just to show that this this bird canmove sticks around in the world, that they can effectively interact with the world around
(08:57):
them.
And it's one of the most robust ideas in psychology.
I mean from
From male bowerbirds, also applies to female bowerbirds.
applies to male and female humans that like we want to show that we can effectivelyinteract with our world.
And it's not just in physical ways, but also task completion, just, you know, checkingsomething off your to-do list or sending an email to your boss that is showing you're,
(09:23):
you're still there and doing things that that gives us this jolt of.
hey, I'm effectively interacting with the world.
um I mean, of course we can subtract to effectively interact with the world, but when wedo so, there's not really evidence most of the time, right?
When you take away a meeting or when you take away or when you're sitting bored, I mean,it doesn't look like you're doing things.
(09:48):
And so we kind of have to work against that by making subtractions visible.
So as you were saying that, I'm thinking in my head of a lot of conferences you go to andyou have the, if I'm speaking at a conference, it's maybe there's a CEO up on the stage
and he's kind of puffing at his chest like that male power bird, just saying like, we wantto add these new features, we're do this new feature and this new feature as well.
(10:13):
If you were be able to sit him to the side and say, and trying to convince him of thebenefits of maybe,
doing less, of stripping back features, of subtraction, of simplification, what is thatkey argument you would make to that alpha male in the room?
um It's interesting.
(10:36):
actually, just went to, I did a conference and I mean, that was the keynote.
So they were talking about subtracting, um but they, they totally flipped it around.
mean, the, the, you know, alpha male in quotes, they were the ones advocating for this.
And I actually think when we're talking about visibility,
(10:56):
those are the people with the opportunity, right?
Because if you imagine yourself as a new employee coming in, you're not going to say,look, here's this radical subtraction I'm going to do.
It's very critical to show competence.
And the safe way to do that is to just kind of keep going with the routine.
as the leader, I guess my pitch would be is like, you have this opportunity for thisuntapped way to make your organization better.
(11:22):
And surely there are things that you realize could be subtracted to
the organization better.
If you exemplify that then it's going to trickle down into all dimensions of your you knowthat gives the the people working for you the the freedom or the the inspiration that they
(11:42):
can also look for ways to subtract to make things better.
So that would be my um you know kind of logical one.
Maybe the more emotional appeal would be you know Steve Jobs right?
I mean his whole
thing.
said Steve Jobs couldn't think of buttons to add to the iPhone.
He made his subtraction very visible.
(12:03):
You could see that there was competence behind the subtractions.
I think maybe that's another key distinction here.
This isn't just about like, we're going to get rid of 35 % of the employees just because Ifeel like doing it.
It's no, here's a way to make the business better.
that's subtraction and I'm going to do it.
And it's actually more work, right?
(12:25):
We have to design the whole iPhone and then we have to decide which buttons are redundantand we're gonna keep going even beyond that and strip down even more.
And that's gonna be our competitive advantage.
yeah, you can kind of exemplify that and show, make it visible and lead by example.
I have one more small story.
I mean, that's like the kind of in the...
(12:49):
You painted a very great picture of the standing in front of the organization.
But one of my favorite.
a leader who exemplifies subtraction is Melanie Frank.
She's a vice president at Capital One and a friend.
um And uh she just makes it a point every time she goes to her teams and they work ontechnology projects and she gives them like really ambitious things to do.
(13:13):
And when she says, when she assigns something, she says, hey, I'm asking you to dosomething really big that only you can do and that is going to take a lot of work.
What can I take off your plate?
Right?
em And so that's...
the puff the chest out leader but it's still kind of leading by example and showing thatthis is something that can be done in this organization to make it better subtracting that
(13:36):
is.
Yeah, it's funny, like sometimes all those kind of simple things, there was an event I wasdoing recently in San Diego, and there was a speaker on the day before me.
And I'm always interested, I wasn't at the day before, but I was asking the attendees,like what was the most interesting thing you learned yesterday or the speaker that you
(13:57):
heard from?
And there was a gentleman who was a former US Navy SEAL, but there was this other speakerthat was speaking and...
she got everyone, and these were all very senior people within the FinTech industry, totake their phones out, which is normally a thing the speaker doesn't want the audience to
do, but take their phones out and go through their calendar and look at that, maybe thatrecurring meeting or that thing they have in their calendar that they can delete, they can
(14:23):
remove.
And then she said, then I want you to take that time and I want you to do like 30 minutesof...
de-work or go out for a walk or and she gave different things to do and it was interestingspeaking to the attendees at that event, that was one of the most simple yet most powerful
things that came from that event, from people just saying I'm just, I've got that 30minutes back in my week that I didn't have before and that was all about what your book is
(14:51):
about which is about subtraction.
That's a brilliant speaking act.
I might have to steal it if it's not copyrighted.
I think the, yeah.
Well, as you know, it works.
mean, because so often the thing there is like, how do you get the idea to action, right?
And if you can make the action right in the event and then you're remembering the ideabecause you took the action.
(15:14):
The other brilliant thing about that, it sounds like they left, uh when.
when you take something off of your calendar, if you then put like, okay, this deep worktime brought to you by the fact that you subtracted is a way to keep that idea front and
center and remember that you can use it for future.
Whereas if you just kind of free it up and then it's an open spot on your calendar, youmight just fill it up with something equally useless later.
(15:44):
So I love that.
Now, um when you wrote the book, who in the book, were there any kind of mentors or alliesyou had and you talked about in the book who became really great exemplars of this idea of
subtraction?
You mentioned the CEO of Capital One.
Were there any other ones that you thought, this is a really good example maybe of a CEOor a leader or civic leader perhaps, or someone from the world of design and obviously
(16:10):
architecture as well, that really exemplifies this idea of subtract?
I, one of my favorites that comes to mind is Maya Lin.
uh And so she's the designer who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
And if you've never been, it's, mean, it's just, it does everything a monument is supposedto do.
(16:32):
uh basically it's on the mall in Washington, DC.
It's among all these huge.
big monuments to very important things that have happened, but the Vietnam VeteransMemorial is like it's cut into the ground.
uh So it's beneath the earth instead of on top of it.
It's also very minimalist design.
(16:54):
It's just slabs of, I'm gonna say, I forget what, I think it's just granite, but it's somevery simple stone.
uh And it just creates this stunning uh effect.
um So it's what I like about that example is, you we're talking about how it's hard toshow competence through subtracting or it's hard to kind of make a statement through
(17:18):
subtracting.
But I think it's that shows that even in this arena where it's like everybody's goingbigger and bigger and bigger and trying to make the boldest statement possible.
And sometimes the boldest statement can be made by kind of bucking that trend.
um So I love that example.
And there's um
I also like it because there's some, know, she, Maya's written about her thinking aboutthat and she was, it's very intentional that she wanted to subtract and she kept kind of
(17:46):
stripping things away that could be on that design, but weren't gonna serve this kind oflarger vision that she had for it.
uh Also, I mean, the last thing I would say about that is because it's such a simpledesign, she was able to put everybody's name on the memorial who,
died in the conflict and um I don't know it just seems like a really powerful you knowkind of addition and subtraction working together.
(18:15):
ah So that's um that's one from the phys-
it's a powerful physical thing.
And I often think I was there recently and because on the other side of the mall, on theend you've obviously the Lincoln Memorial, know, the Martin Luther King Jr.
And you think I was thinking about it in terms of the storytelling, you know, how you takean idea and project it forward.
(18:40):
um
or memory as well.
I just, I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition of, because that Lincoln Memorial isvery big and posing on one end.
And then you've got obviously the Vietnam Memorial as well.
And I think, I mean, this is something that I try to make sure to bring up in all thetimes I talk to people.
it's, you it's obvious after you say it, but the it's not that these are opposites, right?
(19:06):
It's like, it's not that adding is bad and some adding can be a way to make a verypowerful statement and so can subtracting, right?
And so it's a, you know, the King Memorial makes a statement in one way and the
Vietnam Memorial makes a statement in another way.
And so as we're thinking about our innovation and creativity, whatever form that is, tothink about these two tools as adding and subtracting as options at our disposal is
(19:34):
helpful for me at least.
uh I'll give one more example.
uh Like Marie Kondo, uh so I...
Every time I told people about this research, they kept saying, well, Marie Kondo.
And so then I eventually had to like go learn what she was about.
And I mean, you know, the idea on its surface is very simple, right?
It's like tidy and get rid of things.
(19:56):
in a very extreme fashion, but I read her book and I mean, she has this like relentlessfocus on sparking joy, which I think is really great because, you know, one of the things
with subtraction is it's really easy to put it into this mindset of sacrifice.
And there are certainly subtractions that are a sacrifice, like, okay, we have to cut 25 %of the employees because we didn't, we need to for the budget.
(20:20):
But there are also subtractions that are.
joyful and that can make things better and that's the kind of class that that we'retalking about.
So I really respect how Kondo kind of helped people realize that, at least in thedecluttering arena.
And then I'll give one more example because I love how at the beginning you kind of wentimmediately from physical to the
(20:44):
to the mental world with boredom.
mean, omit needless words, right?
That's Strunk and White's classic writing advice.
And there are all these writers who have different versions of that.
I mean, there's Stephen King's Kill Your Darlings.
There's Mark Twain and whoever he cribbed it from talking about, you know, I would havewritten a longer, or would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have enough time.
(21:06):
So I love all those examples too.
Yeah, it's like often when we talk about innovation and everyone wants to talk aboutinnovation, but no one wants to talk about exnovation, about things you remove.
It's like the, it's the unsexy part of innovation.
Like, but actually, you know, often when I work with organizations and sometimes whatthey, you know, they immediately go for the adding the features part.
(21:33):
And it's sometimes a bit of a, sometimes a little bit of a struggle to like...
Okay, just before you go there, because you're actually going to want to go there anyway,what can we strip it back first before we think to add things?
Yeah, we did some research on.
um
on patents and just it was very kind of surface level, but looking at synonyms for addingand subtracting in the patent applications and, uh you know, subtracting way underused as
(22:05):
a way to get a patent.
uh Suggesting what you said, right?
The default way of kind of innovating is to add.
And I know that there are like many forces in the patent system where you need to show uh
show novelty, right?
And it might be easier to show a novelty through adding, but it does, you know, the datathat we have suggests that, you know, the same thing that happens in everywhere else in
(22:30):
our lives is also happening in that innovation process.
Is ex-innovation a term that is that term used a lot in the US?
I've seen it a bunch, like in kind of European writing, but um yeah, I don't know.
actually, I did an article about it recently in a video, which was, I actually got alittle bit of hate mail.
(22:52):
Not that we get very much hate mail in this, but I was actually talking to it in relation,because I mentioned Elon Musk, because obviously in the US there's a doge thing that's
going on.
And I was talking about exnovation, which is like removing things.
Right.
my goodness, I won't do that again.
That was kind of pretty full on the messages I got after that one.
(23:14):
But I still feel very strongly, I think it was felt...
Yeah, yeah.
And I think obviously in Europe...
uh
you know, he's actually in lots of places, he's quite a controversial character.
But the main point was, you know, rather like him or not, that's not the point.
(23:35):
It was about the extent of that pulling things away.
And actually, I'd be interested to get your take on this, but one area where I do see thisidea of what you're talking about subtracting being really thought of very deeply is
around sustainability.
Yeah.
like food companies, packaging companies, I was talking to companies involved in plasticsthe other day about this, and when you're now putting this book out into the world, I'm
(24:05):
interested like which industries are you getting a sense of resonating with the ideas inthe book?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, the whole chapter, I think it's chapter seven in the book is basically devoted tosustainability because there's this kind of always been this long standing debate in
sustainability about progress and growth, right?
(24:27):
And the sustainability people will say growth is the problem.
then, of course, that's also growth is.
done a lot of amazing things, right?
But subtracting is a way where you can kind of keep innovating, keep making progress, andalso not push up against planetary limits, just at a very big, uh big level as you're
(24:50):
thinking about sustainability.
And then, of course, as you bring it down to the level of like businesses trying to bemore sustainable, well, if you can get rid of half your packaging, that's a pretty
surefire win, right?
It's like making it's more sustainable and it's saving you money.
um So I think that there's that.
angle with sustainability.
I wish there'd been more, I mean I've talked to some groups about the sustainabilityimplications.
(25:15):
I think definitely medicine, education.
I guess most of the groups that I'm talking to are interested in this because they feellike their system is bloated and they want help trying to fix the bloated system as
opposed to
(25:36):
Yeah, but then there's, you know, a sprinkling of the sustainability people and then, youknow, kind of the people who design slash creativity, you know, see this as an angle for
it too.
It's been, I mean, it's as you know, it's really interesting going to talk to these groupsand learn about their, their little worlds and, how things work in them.
And that, you know, informs my ideas.
(25:58):
um
But yeah, I would say education, medicine, sustainability, and design are maybe the threeor four kind of main criteria, main areas.
So let's help our listeners now.
They're listening to this, kind of on board with this idea.
They're ready.
Tell us, there a ritual that's really powerful for this idea of subtraction in terms ofhow someone could just start to implement it in their own daily work that they're doing?
(26:24):
Yeah, well, so get their phone out and subtract that recurring meeting, which, yeah.
No, think, know, step one, they've already done, right?
And it's like just having this.
I think there is great value in this just as a construct and as an idea and as a thingthat you say, okay, subtracting is a thing.
I heard it on James's podcast and then now it's more likely to be an option in the waysthat you innovate.
(26:50):
So you've done that part of it, em but that's just kind of a reminder and the more thatyou can practice it, the better.
I would say thinking about ways to build it into
your standard operating procedures.
So a very simple example is just, know, a lot of us have a to-do list, right?
And you say, okay, what am I going to do next week?
(27:12):
Maybe you sit down on Monday to do that.
When you're doing your to-do lists,
which is a very additive thing, can you also think about some stop doings, right?
And I'm not saying you need to do that specific thing, but that's an example of buildingthis into your process.
AI, think, I know you do a lot of interesting things there, um is actually a reallyhelpful tool with this, right?
(27:33):
Are you giving any like subtractive AI prompts?
AI is really good at taking information that's there and getting, know, stripping it down.
So um can you, you know,
when you ask it to plan your vacation, then can you say, can you plan my vacation andactually give me some free time in my vacation and have it subtract things?
(27:54):
can um you make this email 50 % as long and look at the results?
So building it into your standard processes uh is the next thing to do after listening tothis podcast.
when you've started to see teams implement the ideas in the book as well, what kind oftransformations have you seen with the team?
(28:19):
Is it been things like obviously around performance or morale or what changes have youseen happen?
I'm usually there for the morale part.
And I'm glad you brought that up because it goes back to your uh CEO on the stagedepiction, right?
And if you can empower people to do this and they can see that they can like take ameasure of control over how they feel overwhelmed, I mean, that's the most immediate
(28:48):
benefit is just.
on the morale right away.
And then the performance things come later after you're kind of operating in thatenvironment for a longer time.
But the morale is a huge one.
um I'd also say that you need to, know, adding is our default, right?
If we don't change anything, that's what we're going to do.
(29:10):
And our research showed, and know, common sense just suggests that the more overwhelmed weare,
the way we tend to solve that problem is by adding more things, right?
So if you can help teams relieve this initial overwhelm, then they have more time tothink, which makes them more likely to think about all their options, which makes them
more likely to implement subtraction.
(29:30):
So when they start to relieve their overwhelm, then things get progressively better.
And also, um
I'm just wondering in there on, as I'm thinking about that, kind going back to this ideaof this leaders and the team side as well, you know, when a, let's say, often you see
leaders and organizations, they get really fixated around one particular book.
(29:55):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
we need to focus totally on checklists or measure what matters, know, get completely intoOKRs.
We're going to get obsessed with OKRs.
I saw something the other day where it was, you know, delight, delighting the customer,giving every employee the ability to send two and a half thousand dollars on a customer
without having to seek manager approval.
(30:17):
So there's all these different kind of ways.
So as you start to see, let's say if I am a leader and I'm buying into the idea of thebook, this is what we should be doing.
we've got things that have got too complicated, we're kind of losing sight of really whatwe're trying to do here.
How would they start to waterfall or filter the ideas from the book down into the team tomake it not just an idea, but actually a culture within the organization?
(30:45):
Yeah, I mean, think leading by example, right, like the Melanie Frank example of askingpeople what you can take off their plate.
I mean, that's the cultural thing.
I'd say, I mean, I know there's, it's doing big things, right?
Being like aggressive with the subtractions and, you know, so things.
(31:09):
When I talk to groups, I challenge them to say, hey, maybe this is something you don'teven think we should get rid of, but just bring it up.
I mean, we had a group that we were working with and they brought up getting rid of awhole, essentially like one of their five main business lines.
it just led to a useful discussion about why you would want to do that and how that wouldlook if you did do that.
(31:34):
um So I think having...
having bold examples kind of makes it more likely that people are going to um engage intheir own little worlds and again leads by example.
I don't know, you probably have ideas too, yeah.
As I was thinking about the ideas in the book, one thing immediately came to mind, I knowyou have a background as a sports person as well, being a soccer uh player, think,
(32:00):
initially in your life.
one thing that, I mean, a professional soccer player, you are now probably the firstformer professional soccer player we've ever had on this show.
But it did remind me of...
A story I sometimes tell about the Team Sky Cycling Team, which is about this idea of theaggregation of marginal gains, which James Clear, I think, spoke about in Atomic Habits in
(32:30):
his book as well, where um basically if you just break down every component that goesinto, in this case, competing on a bike, for example, and you just look to improve every
element by just 1%, which sounds like a really small number, it compounds.
It's like compounding with investing, for example.
uh
And one thing I thought would be a nice way you could layer this into an organization isevery opportunity, getting everyone that sense of psychological safety, everyone that
(32:58):
feels empowered to be looking for opportunities to make these 1 % marginal gains throughsubtraction.
So not adding new things as well.
And I would say this especially on larger companies where a lot of the time they'rethinking about how to make things more efficient.
(33:19):
for example, and AI is obviously amazing and they're thinking about the big, you know, biggains from there as well, but there's so much within that, like just making things more
efficient by those 1 % marginal gains.
I thought that subtraction could be a perfect thing to sit within that.
Yeah, think if you can, again, that's where you're kind of building it into your processesand then it's all of a sudden it's an option in all of these decision points that you may
(33:44):
have otherwise been overlooking.
So, you know.
Yeah, I think that's another example of that is uh like building it into annual reviews,for example, right?
So every annual review you talk about, here are the three amazing things I'm going to donext year.
It's like, well, what are the things that you're going to stop doing?
And again, by putting it in the process, it's helping people think of it, but it's alsohelping make it OK and make it part of the culture and make it part of what this group
(34:14):
does that then hopefully spills over into all these other things that they're doing.
Yeah, I saw it happen recently with an airline.
It was a little bit controversial.
Some people didn't like this and some people did like this where normally on the airline,everyone gets a bottle of water on the flight.
But now what they do is they go around and they fill it from the steward or what fills itfrom like a large bottle of water.
(34:39):
Everyone gets a little cup, I guess.
yeah.
but you have to ask.
And they were saying about what that saved in terms of not just plastic, but in terms ofthe weight.
And we think about weight equals fuel, equals cost.
And there was like some ridiculously huge number by just making that one little smallsubtraction.
And a lot of passengers were very unhappy about it, I would say as well.
(35:01):
So you have to like from a customer perspective as well.
But I just thought that was an interesting little subtraction piece.
Yeah, and think if you can find the ones that the customers don't care about, I don't knowif, I think this is a Rory Sutherland example.
If it's not, it should be.
uh He wrote a piece after looking at our research and then was talking about how.
(35:23):
he then he contended that you don't nobody wants a bellhop at the hotel that if you youcould get rid of them and people would be perfectly fine and actually happier and it would
be less awkward just carrying your your bag in most of the time and but again i don't knowif that's the right or wrong thing but there are these services that we're providing that
(35:43):
don't actually make people happier and if you can get rid of those then um that's a winfor everybody
I think that example, that was a hotel, think it was a Moxie was the chain of hotels.
think certainly when I saw you was talking about getting rid of, they were subtracting alot of things, but what they did is they put more attention into the communal experience,
(36:04):
creating that third place for people to get together because also generational changes,often we're using hotels now to meet people in, to work in.
That's true, yeah.
with to be working from a different type of space than working in a room where you'relooking at the four walls of that rather drab hotel room.
(36:24):
So let's start to finish up here as well, um just quick fire questions, is there a quotethat kind of guides you or quote you often think about?
uh I mean, it's not related to this, but more to the effect just, you know, life is 10 %what happens to you and 90 % how you react to it.
(36:47):
I find that helpful.
Is it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what about tools or, we haven't really kind of spoken so much about, know, tool appsand things, but is there a tool or an app that you find particularly useful for like the
creative work that you do?
Obviously you're a writer, you're a researcher as well.
(37:08):
um It's less about a tool.
I mean, it's kind of a lack of a tool or app.
I mean, obviously I use word processing.
I use AI to help.
I mean, all these things, but I also find it really helpful to just force myself to havenotebook time every day.
ah And again, it's not that I could do everything on a notebook, like a piece of paper anda pen, but that kind of shifting different ways of working often.
(37:37):
reveals different ideas.
And we spend so much of our time now, obviously staring at a screen.
Yeah, sorry.
one of these people that's really into one of the very fancy notebooks?
Are you like a Luchterm or a Moleskine?
whatever the free thing is that I got at the hotel.
I got a bullet notebook once and then I was like, how do you use this thing?
(37:59):
I just used it as a normal notebook.
But as long as it really it's about the physical act of moving the thing and the abilityto just be outside and do it.
And then probably transcribing it back and forth is really helpful and just getting awayfrom the screen basically.
And is there one book by another author that you've maybe gifted more often or yourecommended more often?
(38:22):
uh I've got two.
I love books, so you're going to have to indulge me.
So one is uh Eduardo Galeano.
He's just this brilliant Uruguayan author.
And he wrote this book called Soccer and Sun and Shadow.
And it's basically how soccer explains the world.
But it's very poetic, and uh it's really a fun read.
uh I don't know that it has much to do with creativity and innovation other than the factthat he's super creative and innovative.
(38:47):
um And then the one that uh is just right up the alley of your audience is the extent
mind by Annie Murphy-Paul.
So she's a journalist, I mean the way she wrote it, it seems like she's a professor as shejust like went into depth of all the ways that we think outside of our brain.
em
(39:07):
And what I tell students, what I tell, I give this to PhD students after they graduate.
And I'm like, you don't even, if you, if you have time to read this, it'll be superhelpful.
If you don't have time to read it, just put it on your desk and use it as an excuse everytime you want to go for a walk or go work out because it's like all this evidence that,
you know, doing that is so helpful to, to your thinking.
(39:29):
Um, and so I love that book, The Extended Mind.
Great, that's great, and I haven't heard of that book before, anyone's recommended that,so I'm going to go and check that out, and also the one on soccer, I have a friend that's
about to go and travel around uh Italian soccer games to go and experience soccer in Italyas well, so I'm going to recommend that book to him, he'll be very thankful of that book
(39:50):
before his trip.
If people want to learn more about your work and your research, where's the best place forto go and do that?
Well, subtract the book has most of the information, you know, all the things we talkedabout.
My parents gave me a good Google name.
So L E I D Y K L O T Z.
mean, I have a website.
I've got another book coming out in April about our relationship with our physicalsurroundings.
(40:14):
Um, and you know, how, how the mind relates to our physical surroundings.
Um, and so, um, that's something to look out for too, but you can, you can find out whatI'm doing just by just with Google and with my website.
Yeah.
but we'll definitely have to have you back on the show again talking about that, that newbook as well.
I think that would resonate a lot with our audience.
Dr.
(40:35):
Lydie Klotz, thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
Today I'm joined by Dr.
Lydie Klotz, an engineer, designer, and behavioral scientist whose work challenges adeep-seated bias in how we think and act.
His book, Subtract, the untapped science of less, flips our default impulse to add ontoits head, showing how sometimes the smartest move is actually to remove.
(00:30):
I mean, that's a weird way of writing that.
Sorry, let me just go again.
I'll re-start that.
Smartest.
smartest move is actually to...
to re-move.
You gotta hit the...
Well, I don't know, I mean, or you can leave it settle.
I thought it was good.
Anyway.
(00:51):
fine.
I'll go again.
Don't worry.
Okay.
Today I'm joined by Dr.
Lydie Klotz, an engineer, designer, and behavioral scientist whose work challenges adeep-seated bias in how we think and act.
His book, Subtract, the Untapped Science of Less, flips our default impulse to add ontoits head, showing how sometimes the smartest move is to remove.
(01:17):
He supports this with experiments from Lego models to freeway demolitions andinterventions from Jenga-inspired thinking to stop doing lists.
Subtract is a rare blend of science, strategy, and design perfect for listeners wonderinghow to simplify systems, sharpen decisions, and lead more intentionally.
Lydie Klotz, welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast.
(01:40):
Thanks for having me, James.
That was great.
I love the smartest move is to remove.
That's like one I haven't thought of it, but that's, it's very memorable.
mean, I caught it.
So that's great.
of little bit of alliteration there.
Now you've come from these different, these worlds of engineering, architecture,behavioral science.
tell us what professional or personal moment first made you suspicious that additionwasn't always the answer.
(02:07):
And I mean, one of the stories I tell in the book is, mean, I remember my summer job wasmowing grass and I would do it.
I did it for my parents and then I eventually did it for this guy who owned all theproperty in town.
And I remember that gives you a lot of time to think, right.
And about all these deep questions.
And one of the questions I had was like, why am I
(02:28):
why is there all this grass here that seems to only exist for the purpose of me mowing it,right?
And em so it's just something that I've always noticed as a uh person interested in tryingto change things from how they are to how we want them to be, right?
um And whether that's through engineering or design or education, that's as professionals,all of us are engaged in that in some way.
(02:54):
And you kind of see that there's
I didn't conceptualize it as subtracting at first, but I did notice these opportunitieswhere, oh, things are actually better because there's less.
um Whether it's the not having to mow grass or whether it's a really neat modernistbuilding that has clean lines and all these examples.
(03:18):
you were just talking about that and I'm looking out as I'm recording this just now I'mlooking at the grass that I have to go and mow probably after this call but we had a guest
on Dr.
Joseph Gibelli who was talking about, we had this conversation about boredom and thebenefits of boredom sometimes because we live in this know 24-7 like base switched on
(03:39):
world and he said you know sometimes we just have to like disconnect and be a bit boredand that's where some of those ideas start
bubbling to the surface as well.
So in this world that we're in just now, which often has more features, more complexity,more choices, you chose to explore in your work kind of subtle removal.
So was there a project or an industrial trend that convinced you that subtraction wasactually something that urgently needed to be attended to?
(04:08):
I I was seeing these trends the same way you are.
And I love how you connected, like, you know, went from the physical world of lawn mowingto the mental world of boredom, right?
And, or just, you know, idleness or, you know, I'm sure the people who are listening tothis are familiar with the idea that, you know, you get away from your screen and stop
trying to do work and you go for a run and that's when the idea comes, right?
(04:31):
And, you know, so there are all these examples.
I think if, if anything helped me,
crystallized the idea that then became the research in the book.
It was just playing Legos with my son.
And we played a lot of Legos.
um But one particular time we were
building a bridge and he was three.
And uh the basic problem we had was that the bridge wasn't level and the bridge.
(04:52):
So one of the support columns was shorter than the other support column.
So I'm the dad and I have my engineering background.
It's going to come in handy here, right?
I reached behind me to grab a block to add to the shorter column.
But by the time I had turned back around with the block, my son had removed a block fromthe, from the longer column and made the level bridge by taking away.
(05:13):
And so
Whereas all these other examples, I was kind of like focusing on the end state of like uhstreamlined building or boredom.
This was like, okay, there's uh a step here.
There's an action that has to happen, which is to take away from what's already there.
um And that's subtracting.
(05:34):
And, you the Legger bridge has proven such a useful example, because we've we've sincedone a ton of research to kind of see how our brain thinks about this and
it does is very similar to what happened to me in that moment, which is, okay, we've gotthis thing that we want to make better, which is in this case, it's a unlevel bridge.
In other cases, it's like we want to have innovation.
(05:55):
We want to come up with an idea.
We want to make our organization work more smoothly.
um And our first thought is what can we add to it, right?
To make it better.
And then we add and move on without even considering this whole other
class of options and that's why sometimes the the smartest move is to remove.
yeah.
(06:17):
It's funny because as you were talking about that I was just thinking there was a video Isaw a little while ago of the actor Michael Caine and he was talking about the first time
he got into uh film making, being a movie star from being a theatre actor and so he wouldgo on he did his first thing and the actor, the director said cut and he just the actor
(06:37):
came the director came up to Michael Caine said less, little bit less and he goes nexttake a gain, try again, stop!
The director comes out, no, less, less.
And he does it a third time, no, no, less, less, I want you to do less.
And Michael Caine said, listen, if I do any less, I won't be doing anything.
(06:58):
And the director said, exactly.
So why does it sometimes feel that subtraction is almost kind of harder?
it a cultural thing, we glorify accumulation, or is it?
economic or is it just the way that our brain works we all always want to
(07:18):
a little bit of both all and I think so the first part is that yeah that is how our brainworks right that our brain immediately thinks to add and that's the default so you know
you're we're we have these biases and these mental shortcuts that make it so that you knowit generally serves us well to think of adding first and then move on and that just
(07:43):
relieves cognitive load to not have to think about subtracting.
Of course, we can think about it.
I mean, we're talking about it right now and you can remind yourself to think about it.
And then you have this world where it's, really hard to show kind of competence throughsubtracting, right?
It's, it's very often hard to show that you're doing a good job if you take somethingaway.
(08:05):
Um, and that, you know, that has
roots in just like what we value in society.
And, you know, sometimes people will be like, well, this is just an American thing, right?
But it's, it's actually very like animal thing.
uh Where, uh what my favorite example for this is the bowerbirds.
And these are the birds that build ceremonial nests.
So the male bowerbird builds a ceremonial nest.
(08:28):
um And then the female bowerbirds go around looking at the nests and decide to mate.
decide which male to mate with based on which nest they like the best, um which kind ofmakes sense so far.
But then the female bowerbird goes and builds a nest to raise and shelter the young.
So the whole point of the first male-billed nest is just to show that this this bird canmove sticks around in the world, that they can effectively interact with the world around
(08:57):
them.
And it's one of the most robust ideas in psychology.
I mean from
From male bowerbirds, also applies to female bowerbirds.
applies to male and female humans that like we want to show that we can effectivelyinteract with our world.
And it's not just in physical ways, but also task completion, just, you know, checkingsomething off your to-do list or sending an email to your boss that is showing you're,
(09:23):
you're still there and doing things that that gives us this jolt of.
hey, I'm effectively interacting with the world.
um I mean, of course we can subtract to effectively interact with the world, but when wedo so, there's not really evidence most of the time, right?
When you take away a meeting or when you take away or when you're sitting bored, I mean,it doesn't look like you're doing things.
(09:48):
And so we kind of have to work against that by making subtractions visible.
So as you were saying that, I'm thinking in my head of a lot of conferences you go to andyou have the, if I'm speaking at a conference, it's maybe there's a CEO up on the stage
and he's kind of puffing at his chest like that male power bird, just saying like, we wantto add these new features, we're do this new feature and this new feature as well.
(10:13):
If you were be able to sit him to the side and say, and trying to convince him of thebenefits of maybe,
doing less, of stripping back features, of subtraction, of simplification, what is thatkey argument you would make to that alpha male in the room?
um It's interesting.
(10:36):
actually, just went to, I did a conference and I mean, that was the keynote.
So they were talking about subtracting, um but they, they totally flipped it around.
mean, the, the, you know, alpha male in quotes, they were the ones advocating for this.
And I actually think when we're talking about visibility,
(10:56):
those are the people with the opportunity, right?
Because if you imagine yourself as a new employee coming in, you're not going to say,look, here's this radical subtraction I'm going to do.
It's very critical to show competence.
And the safe way to do that is to just kind of keep going with the routine.
as the leader, I guess my pitch would be is like, you have this opportunity for thisuntapped way to make your organization better.
(11:22):
And surely there are things that you realize could be subtracted to
the organization better.
If you exemplify that then it's going to trickle down into all dimensions of your you knowthat gives the the people working for you the the freedom or the the inspiration that they
(11:42):
can also look for ways to subtract to make things better.
So that would be my um you know kind of logical one.
Maybe the more emotional appeal would be you know Steve Jobs right?
I mean his whole
thing.
said Steve Jobs couldn't think of buttons to add to the iPhone.
He made his subtraction very visible.
(12:03):
You could see that there was competence behind the subtractions.
I think maybe that's another key distinction here.
This isn't just about like, we're going to get rid of 35 % of the employees just because Ifeel like doing it.
It's no, here's a way to make the business better.
that's subtraction and I'm going to do it.
And it's actually more work, right?
(12:25):
We have to design the whole iPhone and then we have to decide which buttons are redundantand we're gonna keep going even beyond that and strip down even more.
And that's gonna be our competitive advantage.
yeah, you can kind of exemplify that and show, make it visible and lead by example.
I have one more small story.
I mean, that's like the kind of in the...
(12:49):
You painted a very great picture of the standing in front of the organization.
But one of my favorite.
a leader who exemplifies subtraction is Melanie Frank.
She's a vice president at Capital One and a friend.
um And uh she just makes it a point every time she goes to her teams and they work ontechnology projects and she gives them like really ambitious things to do.
(13:13):
And when she says, when she assigns something, she says, hey, I'm asking you to dosomething really big that only you can do and that is going to take a lot of work.
What can I take off your plate?
Right?
em And so that's...
the puff the chest out leader but it's still kind of leading by example and showing thatthis is something that can be done in this organization to make it better subtracting that
(13:36):
is.
Yeah, it's funny, like sometimes all those kind of simple things, there was an event I wasdoing recently in San Diego, and there was a speaker on the day before me.
And I'm always interested, I wasn't at the day before, but I was asking the attendees,like what was the most interesting thing you learned yesterday or the speaker that you
(13:57):
heard from?
And there was a gentleman who was a former US Navy SEAL, but there was this other speakerthat was speaking and...
she got everyone, and these were all very senior people within the FinTech industry, totake their phones out, which is normally a thing the speaker doesn't want the audience to
do, but take their phones out and go through their calendar and look at that, maybe thatrecurring meeting or that thing they have in their calendar that they can delete, they can
(14:23):
remove.
And then she said, then I want you to take that time and I want you to do like 30 minutesof...
de-work or go out for a walk or and she gave different things to do and it was interestingspeaking to the attendees at that event, that was one of the most simple yet most powerful
things that came from that event, from people just saying I'm just, I've got that 30minutes back in my week that I didn't have before and that was all about what your book is
(14:51):
about which is about subtraction.
That's a brilliant speaking act.
I might have to steal it if it's not copyrighted.
I think the, yeah.
Well, as you know, it works.
mean, because so often the thing there is like, how do you get the idea to action, right?
And if you can make the action right in the event and then you're remembering the ideabecause you took the action.
(15:14):
The other brilliant thing about that, it sounds like they left, uh when.
when you take something off of your calendar, if you then put like, okay, this deep worktime brought to you by the fact that you subtracted is a way to keep that idea front and
center and remember that you can use it for future.
Whereas if you just kind of free it up and then it's an open spot on your calendar, youmight just fill it up with something equally useless later.
(15:44):
So I love that.
Now, um when you wrote the book, who in the book, were there any kind of mentors or alliesyou had and you talked about in the book who became really great exemplars of this idea of
subtraction?
You mentioned the CEO of Capital One.
Were there any other ones that you thought, this is a really good example maybe of a CEOor a leader or civic leader perhaps, or someone from the world of design and obviously
(16:10):
architecture as well, that really exemplifies this idea of subtract?
I, one of my favorites that comes to mind is Maya Lin.
uh And so she's the designer who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
And if you've never been, it's, mean, it's just, it does everything a monument is supposedto do.
(16:32):
uh basically it's on the mall in Washington, DC.
It's among all these huge.
big monuments to very important things that have happened, but the Vietnam VeteransMemorial is like it's cut into the ground.
uh So it's beneath the earth instead of on top of it.
It's also very minimalist design.
(16:54):
It's just slabs of, I'm gonna say, I forget what, I think it's just granite, but it's somevery simple stone.
uh And it just creates this stunning uh effect.
um So it's what I like about that example is, you we're talking about how it's hard toshow competence through subtracting or it's hard to kind of make a statement through
(17:18):
subtracting.
But I think it's that shows that even in this arena where it's like everybody's goingbigger and bigger and bigger and trying to make the boldest statement possible.
And sometimes the boldest statement can be made by kind of bucking that trend.
um So I love that example.
And there's um
I also like it because there's some, know, she, Maya's written about her thinking aboutthat and she was, it's very intentional that she wanted to subtract and she kept kind of
(17:46):
stripping things away that could be on that design, but weren't gonna serve this kind oflarger vision that she had for it.
uh Also, I mean, the last thing I would say about that is because it's such a simpledesign, she was able to put everybody's name on the memorial who,
died in the conflict and um I don't know it just seems like a really powerful you knowkind of addition and subtraction working together.
(18:15):
ah So that's um that's one from the phys-
it's a powerful physical thing.
And I often think I was there recently and because on the other side of the mall, on theend you've obviously the Lincoln Memorial, know, the Martin Luther King Jr.
And you think I was thinking about it in terms of the storytelling, you know, how you takean idea and project it forward.
(18:40):
um
or memory as well.
I just, I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition of, because that Lincoln Memorial isvery big and posing on one end.
And then you've got obviously the Vietnam Memorial as well.
And I think, I mean, this is something that I try to make sure to bring up in all thetimes I talk to people.
it's, you it's obvious after you say it, but the it's not that these are opposites, right?
(19:06):
It's like, it's not that adding is bad and some adding can be a way to make a verypowerful statement and so can subtracting, right?
And so it's a, you know, the King Memorial makes a statement in one way and the
Vietnam Memorial makes a statement in another way.
And so as we're thinking about our innovation and creativity, whatever form that is, tothink about these two tools as adding and subtracting as options at our disposal is
(19:34):
helpful for me at least.
uh I'll give one more example.
uh Like Marie Kondo, uh so I...
Every time I told people about this research, they kept saying, well, Marie Kondo.
And so then I eventually had to like go learn what she was about.
And I mean, you know, the idea on its surface is very simple, right?
It's like tidy and get rid of things.
(19:56):
in a very extreme fashion, but I read her book and I mean, she has this like relentlessfocus on sparking joy, which I think is really great because, you know, one of the things
with subtraction is it's really easy to put it into this mindset of sacrifice.
And there are certainly subtractions that are a sacrifice, like, okay, we have to cut 25 %of the employees because we didn't, we need to for the budget.
(20:20):
But there are also subtractions that are.
joyful and that can make things better and that's the kind of class that that we'retalking about.
So I really respect how Kondo kind of helped people realize that, at least in thedecluttering arena.
And then I'll give one more example because I love how at the beginning you kind of wentimmediately from physical to the
(20:44):
to the mental world with boredom.
mean, omit needless words, right?
That's Strunk and White's classic writing advice.
And there are all these writers who have different versions of that.
I mean, there's Stephen King's Kill Your Darlings.
There's Mark Twain and whoever he cribbed it from talking about, you know, I would havewritten a longer, or would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have enough time.
(21:06):
So I love all those examples too.
Yeah, it's like often when we talk about innovation and everyone wants to talk aboutinnovation, but no one wants to talk about exnovation, about things you remove.
It's like the, it's the unsexy part of innovation.
Like, but actually, you know, often when I work with organizations and sometimes whatthey, you know, they immediately go for the adding the features part.
(21:33):
And it's sometimes a bit of a, sometimes a little bit of a struggle to like...
Okay, just before you go there, because you're actually going to want to go there anyway,what can we strip it back first before we think to add things?
Yeah, we did some research on.
um
on patents and just it was very kind of surface level, but looking at synonyms for addingand subtracting in the patent applications and, uh you know, subtracting way underused as
(22:05):
a way to get a patent.
uh Suggesting what you said, right?
The default way of kind of innovating is to add.
And I know that there are like many forces in the patent system where you need to show uh
show novelty, right?
And it might be easier to show a novelty through adding, but it does, you know, the datathat we have suggests that, you know, the same thing that happens in everywhere else in
(22:30):
our lives is also happening in that innovation process.
Is ex-innovation a term that is that term used a lot in the US?
I've seen it a bunch, like in kind of European writing, but um yeah, I don't know.
actually, I did an article about it recently in a video, which was, I actually got alittle bit of hate mail.
(22:52):
Not that we get very much hate mail in this, but I was actually talking to it in relation,because I mentioned Elon Musk, because obviously in the US there's a doge thing that's
going on.
And I was talking about exnovation, which is like removing things.
Right.
my goodness, I won't do that again.
That was kind of pretty full on the messages I got after that one.
(23:14):
But I still feel very strongly, I think it was felt...
Yeah, yeah.
And I think obviously in Europe...
uh
you know, he's actually in lots of places, he's quite a controversial character.
But the main point was, you know, rather like him or not, that's not the point.
(23:35):
It was about the extent of that pulling things away.
And actually, I'd be interested to get your take on this, but one area where I do see thisidea of what you're talking about subtracting being really thought of very deeply is
around sustainability.
Yeah.
like food companies, packaging companies, I was talking to companies involved in plasticsthe other day about this, and when you're now putting this book out into the world, I'm
(24:05):
interested like which industries are you getting a sense of resonating with the ideas inthe book?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, the whole chapter, I think it's chapter seven in the book is basically devoted tosustainability because there's this kind of always been this long standing debate in
sustainability about progress and growth, right?
(24:27):
And the sustainability people will say growth is the problem.
then, of course, that's also growth is.
done a lot of amazing things, right?
But subtracting is a way where you can kind of keep innovating, keep making progress, andalso not push up against planetary limits, just at a very big, uh big level as you're
(24:50):
thinking about sustainability.
And then, of course, as you bring it down to the level of like businesses trying to bemore sustainable, well, if you can get rid of half your packaging, that's a pretty
surefire win, right?
It's like making it's more sustainable and it's saving you money.
um So I think that there's that.
angle with sustainability.
I wish there'd been more, I mean I've talked to some groups about the sustainabilityimplications.
(25:15):
I think definitely medicine, education.
I guess most of the groups that I'm talking to are interested in this because they feellike their system is bloated and they want help trying to fix the bloated system as
opposed to
(25:36):
Yeah, but then there's, you know, a sprinkling of the sustainability people and then, youknow, kind of the people who design slash creativity, you know, see this as an angle for
it too.
It's been, I mean, it's as you know, it's really interesting going to talk to these groupsand learn about their, their little worlds and, how things work in them.
And that, you know, informs my ideas.
(25:58):
um
But yeah, I would say education, medicine, sustainability, and design are maybe the threeor four kind of main criteria, main areas.
So let's help our listeners now.
They're listening to this, kind of on board with this idea.
They're ready.
Tell us, there a ritual that's really powerful for this idea of subtraction in terms ofhow someone could just start to implement it in their own daily work that they're doing?
(26:24):
Yeah, well, so get their phone out and subtract that recurring meeting, which, yeah.
No, think, know, step one, they've already done, right?
And it's like just having this.
I think there is great value in this just as a construct and as an idea and as a thingthat you say, okay, subtracting is a thing.
I heard it on James's podcast and then now it's more likely to be an option in the waysthat you innovate.
(26:50):
So you've done that part of it, em but that's just kind of a reminder and the more thatyou can practice it, the better.
I would say thinking about ways to build it into
your standard operating procedures.
So a very simple example is just, know, a lot of us have a to-do list, right?
And you say, okay, what am I going to do next week?
(27:12):
Maybe you sit down on Monday to do that.
When you're doing your to-do lists,
which is a very additive thing, can you also think about some stop doings, right?
And I'm not saying you need to do that specific thing, but that's an example of buildingthis into your process.
AI, think, I know you do a lot of interesting things there, um is actually a reallyhelpful tool with this, right?
(27:33):
Are you giving any like subtractive AI prompts?
AI is really good at taking information that's there and getting, know, stripping it down.
So um can you, you know,
when you ask it to plan your vacation, then can you say, can you plan my vacation andactually give me some free time in my vacation and have it subtract things?
(27:54):
can um you make this email 50 % as long and look at the results?
So building it into your standard processes uh is the next thing to do after listening tothis podcast.
when you've started to see teams implement the ideas in the book as well, what kind oftransformations have you seen with the team?
(28:19):
Is it been things like obviously around performance or morale or what changes have youseen happen?
I'm usually there for the morale part.
And I'm glad you brought that up because it goes back to your uh CEO on the stagedepiction, right?
And if you can empower people to do this and they can see that they can like take ameasure of control over how they feel overwhelmed, I mean, that's the most immediate
(28:48):
benefit is just.
on the morale right away.
And then the performance things come later after you're kind of operating in thatenvironment for a longer time.
But the morale is a huge one.
um I'd also say that you need to, know, adding is our default, right?
If we don't change anything, that's what we're going to do.
(29:10):
And our research showed, and know, common sense just suggests that the more overwhelmed weare,
the way we tend to solve that problem is by adding more things, right?
So if you can help teams relieve this initial overwhelm, then they have more time tothink, which makes them more likely to think about all their options, which makes them
more likely to implement subtraction.
(29:30):
So when they start to relieve their overwhelm, then things get progressively better.
And also, um
I'm just wondering in there on, as I'm thinking about that, kind going back to this ideaof this leaders and the team side as well, you know, when a, let's say, often you see
leaders and organizations, they get really fixated around one particular book.
(29:55):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
we need to focus totally on checklists or measure what matters, know, get completely intoOKRs.
We're going to get obsessed with OKRs.
I saw something the other day where it was, you know, delight, delighting the customer,giving every employee the ability to send two and a half thousand dollars on a customer
without having to seek manager approval.
(30:17):
So there's all these different kind of ways.
So as you start to see, let's say if I am a leader and I'm buying into the idea of thebook, this is what we should be doing.
we've got things that have got too complicated, we're kind of losing sight of really whatwe're trying to do here.
How would they start to waterfall or filter the ideas from the book down into the team tomake it not just an idea, but actually a culture within the organization?
(30:45):
Yeah, I mean, think leading by example, right, like the Melanie Frank example of askingpeople what you can take off their plate.
I mean, that's the cultural thing.
I'd say, I mean, I know there's, it's doing big things, right?
Being like aggressive with the subtractions and, you know, so things.
(31:09):
When I talk to groups, I challenge them to say, hey, maybe this is something you don'teven think we should get rid of, but just bring it up.
I mean, we had a group that we were working with and they brought up getting rid of awhole, essentially like one of their five main business lines.
it just led to a useful discussion about why you would want to do that and how that wouldlook if you did do that.
(31:34):
um So I think having...
having bold examples kind of makes it more likely that people are going to um engage intheir own little worlds and again leads by example.
I don't know, you probably have ideas too, yeah.
As I was thinking about the ideas in the book, one thing immediately came to mind, I knowyou have a background as a sports person as well, being a soccer uh player, think,
(32:00):
initially in your life.
one thing that, I mean, a professional soccer player, you are now probably the firstformer professional soccer player we've ever had on this show.
But it did remind me of...
A story I sometimes tell about the Team Sky Cycling Team, which is about this idea of theaggregation of marginal gains, which James Clear, I think, spoke about in Atomic Habits in
(32:30):
his book as well, where um basically if you just break down every component that goesinto, in this case, competing on a bike, for example, and you just look to improve every
element by just 1%, which sounds like a really small number, it compounds.
It's like compounding with investing, for example.
uh
And one thing I thought would be a nice way you could layer this into an organization isevery opportunity, getting everyone that sense of psychological safety, everyone that
(32:58):
feels empowered to be looking for opportunities to make these 1 % marginal gains throughsubtraction.
So not adding new things as well.
And I would say this especially on larger companies where a lot of the time they'rethinking about how to make things more efficient.
(33:19):
for example, and AI is obviously amazing and they're thinking about the big, you know, biggains from there as well, but there's so much within that, like just making things more
efficient by those 1 % marginal gains.
I thought that subtraction could be a perfect thing to sit within that.
Yeah, think if you can, again, that's where you're kind of building it into your processesand then it's all of a sudden it's an option in all of these decision points that you may
(33:44):
have otherwise been overlooking.
So, you know.
Yeah, I think that's another example of that is uh like building it into annual reviews,for example, right?
So every annual review you talk about, here are the three amazing things I'm going to donext year.
It's like, well, what are the things that you're going to stop doing?
And again, by putting it in the process, it's helping people think of it, but it's alsohelping make it OK and make it part of the culture and make it part of what this group
(34:14):
does that then hopefully spills over into all these other things that they're doing.
Yeah, I saw it happen recently with an airline.
It was a little bit controversial.
Some people didn't like this and some people did like this where normally on the airline,everyone gets a bottle of water on the flight.
But now what they do is they go around and they fill it from the steward or what fills itfrom like a large bottle of water.
(34:39):
Everyone gets a little cup, I guess.
yeah.
but you have to ask.
And they were saying about what that saved in terms of not just plastic, but in terms ofthe weight.
And we think about weight equals fuel, equals cost.
And there was like some ridiculously huge number by just making that one little smallsubtraction.
And a lot of passengers were very unhappy about it, I would say as well.
(35:01):
So you have to like from a customer perspective as well.
But I just thought that was an interesting little subtraction piece.
Yeah, and think if you can find the ones that the customers don't care about, I don't knowif, I think this is a Rory Sutherland example.
If it's not, it should be.
uh He wrote a piece after looking at our research and then was talking about how.
(35:23):
he then he contended that you don't nobody wants a bellhop at the hotel that if you youcould get rid of them and people would be perfectly fine and actually happier and it would
be less awkward just carrying your your bag in most of the time and but again i don't knowif that's the right or wrong thing but there are these services that we're providing that
(35:43):
don't actually make people happier and if you can get rid of those then um that's a winfor everybody
I think that example, that was a hotel, think it was a Moxie was the chain of hotels.
think certainly when I saw you was talking about getting rid of, they were subtracting alot of things, but what they did is they put more attention into the communal experience,
(36:04):
creating that third place for people to get together because also generational changes,often we're using hotels now to meet people in, to work in.
That's true, yeah.
with to be working from a different type of space than working in a room where you'relooking at the four walls of that rather drab hotel room.
(36:24):
So let's start to finish up here as well, um just quick fire questions, is there a quotethat kind of guides you or quote you often think about?
uh I mean, it's not related to this, but more to the effect just, you know, life is 10 %what happens to you and 90 % how you react to it.
(36:47):
I find that helpful.
Is it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what about tools or, we haven't really kind of spoken so much about, know, tool appsand things, but is there a tool or an app that you find particularly useful for like the
creative work that you do?
Obviously you're a writer, you're a researcher as well.
(37:08):
um It's less about a tool.
I mean, it's kind of a lack of a tool or app.
I mean, obviously I use word processing.
I use AI to help.
I mean, all these things, but I also find it really helpful to just force myself to havenotebook time every day.
ah And again, it's not that I could do everything on a notebook, like a piece of paper anda pen, but that kind of shifting different ways of working often.
(37:37):
reveals different ideas.
And we spend so much of our time now, obviously staring at a screen.
Yeah, sorry.
one of these people that's really into one of the very fancy notebooks?
Are you like a Luchterm or a Moleskine?
whatever the free thing is that I got at the hotel.
I got a bullet notebook once and then I was like, how do you use this thing?
(37:59):
I just used it as a normal notebook.
But as long as it really it's about the physical act of moving the thing and the abilityto just be outside and do it.
And then probably transcribing it back and forth is really helpful and just getting awayfrom the screen basically.
And is there one book by another author that you've maybe gifted more often or yourecommended more often?
(38:22):
uh I've got two.
I love books, so you're going to have to indulge me.
So one is uh Eduardo Galeano.
He's just this brilliant Uruguayan author.
And he wrote this book called Soccer and Sun and Shadow.
And it's basically how soccer explains the world.
But it's very poetic, and uh it's really a fun read.
uh I don't know that it has much to do with creativity and innovation other than the factthat he's super creative and innovative.
(38:47):
um And then the one that uh is just right up the alley of your audience is the extent
mind by Annie Murphy-Paul.
So she's a journalist, I mean the way she wrote it, it seems like she's a professor as shejust like went into depth of all the ways that we think outside of our brain.
em
(39:07):
And what I tell students, what I tell, I give this to PhD students after they graduate.
And I'm like, you don't even, if you, if you have time to read this, it'll be superhelpful.
If you don't have time to read it, just put it on your desk and use it as an excuse everytime you want to go for a walk or go work out because it's like all this evidence that,
you know, doing that is so helpful to, to your thinking.
(39:29):
Um, and so I love that book, The Extended Mind.
Great, that's great, and I haven't heard of that book before, anyone's recommended that,so I'm going to go and check that out, and also the one on soccer, I have a friend that's
about to go and travel around uh Italian soccer games to go and experience soccer in Italyas well, so I'm going to recommend that book to him, he'll be very thankful of that book
(39:50):
before his trip.
If people want to learn more about your work and your research, where's the best place forto go and do that?
Well, subtract the book has most of the information, you know, all the things we talkedabout.
My parents gave me a good Google name.
So L E I D Y K L O T Z.
mean, I have a website.
I've got another book coming out in April about our relationship with our physicalsurroundings.
(40:14):
Um, and you know, how, how the mind relates to our physical surroundings.
Um, and so, um, that's something to look out for too, but you can, you can find out whatI'm doing just by just with Google and with my website.
Yeah.
but we'll definitely have to have you back on the show again talking about that, that newbook as well.
I think that would resonate a lot with our audience.
Dr.
(40:35):
Lydie Klotz, thank you so much for being a guest on the Super Creativity Podcast.
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