Addition by Subtraction

"Addition by Subtraction" is a phrase used by coaches to mean that sometimes your team can get better not by adding more talent, but by shedding some people or practices that are interfering with or inhibiting your success.

In his book “Atomic Habits” author  James Clear mentioned about  an article published in the New Yorker titled “Better All the Time,” where in James Suroweicki writes: “Japanese firms emphasized what came to be known as ‘lean production,’ relentlessly looking to remove waste of all kinds from the production process, down to redesigning workspaces, so workers didn’t have to waste time twisting and turning to reach their tools. The result was that Japanese factories were more efficient and Japanese products were more reliable than American ones. In 1974, service calls for American-made color televisions were five times as common as for Japanese televisions. By 1979, it took American workers three times as long to assemble their sets.”

This strategy can be stated as addition by subtraction. The Japanese companies looked for every point of friction in the manufacturing process and eliminated it. As they subtracted wasted effort, they added customers and revenue. Similarly, when we remove the points of friction that sap our time and energy, we can achieve more with less effort. “

On personal front one has  to identify those habits and shed those daily routines which spoil the health,wealth and peace of mind even if they are providing the pleasure and joy.

Some companies ,sport teams , organizations  have to adopt this strategy well before the game is over for them ,they have to shed those people (even if they are super stars) if they interfere with the success of a team , company or organization.

“1 Rule All Leaders Should Practice: Addition By Subtraction, As a manager, entrepreneur or CEO, you have to move bad people out. Only then can your company truly achieve growth and success. “ - By Tom Gimbel ,Founder and CEO, LaSalle Network. Read more @ -https://www.inc.com/tom-gimbel/1-rule-all-leaders-should-practice-addition-by-subtraction.html

Read More

The Billion Dollar Secret

Rafael Badziag interviewed 21 billionaires for his book “The Billion Dollar Secret” and found that six shared habits helped lead to their success. Badziag spent five years conducting face-to-face interviews with 21 self-made billionaire entrepreneurs around the world (defined as those with a net worth of at least $1 billion) and researching their lives and companies. He found that they share the same six habits, which created the foundation for their businesses and financial success.

BusinessInsider published six habits that the author claims are shared by all the billionaires he interviewed.

Here they are:

1. Billionaires wake up early .

2. Billionaires keep healthy.

3. Billionaires read. 

4. Billionaires contemplate. 

5. Billionaires develop routines and rituals. 

6. Billionaires practice discipline.

Source :

https://www.businessinsider.my/billionaire-study-six-habits-success-building-wealth-2019-6/

http://thebilliondollarsecret.com/

Read More

To be Kind or Clever?

Below is from the transcript of Jeff Bezos’ commencement address to Princeton’s Class of 2010:

As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.” My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. Every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car and off we’d go in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving and my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.

At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage or figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said “every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life.” I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

I have a vivid memory of what happened next and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life, the life you author from scratch on your own, begins. How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make? Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?.

In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. 

Thank you and good luck!

 ‘It’s harder to be kind than clever’- Jeff Bezos

Source: Transcript of Jeff Bezos’ commencement address to Princeton’s Class of 2010

Read More

New law of productivity

Deep Work is about the science of productivity, the best way to get more meaningful work done is by working deeply – working in a state of high concentration without distractions on a single task.

The new law of productivity is:

High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)

“Deep Work: Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

“Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”

Deep Work Is Rare, Yet Highly Valuable

“The Deep Work Hypothesis: The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

 For starters, shallow work is easier. In addition, shallow work seems to be encouraged by most businesses. Think: constant connectivity, expectations of fast response times, or open plan offices. Employees, choosing the path of least resistance, will simply adopt to this type of shallow-work-inducing environment by, well, working in a shallow manner.

According to Cal Newport author of the book “Deep Work”, most workers today succumb to something he calls increasingly visible busyness or busyness as proxy for productivity. In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be valuable and productive at work, many knowledge workers turn toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.

Cal Newport sums it up: “Deep work is hard and shallow work is easier and in the absence of clear goals for your job, the visible busyness that surrounds shallow work becomes self-preserving.”

The Rules of Deep Work.....

Rule #1: Work Deeply

Rule #2: Embrace Boredom

Rule #3: Quit Social Media

Rule #4: Drain the Shallows

As the world advances, three kinds of people will survive and prosper:

I-Owners of capital or people with access to it

II-Those who can work with intelligent machines and technology

III-Superstars in their field of work

Deep Work focuses on the third type. To become one, you need to develop two skills: the ability to quickly master hard things and the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed. Deep Work is the concept that interlinks these two skills.

Source:”Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by Cal Newport

Read More