0:07

Welcome to another episode of Greg McEwen

0:09

podcast where we explore of course the

0:11

disciplined pursuit of less but better. I'm

0:14

Greg McEwen, the author of Essentialism and

0:16

of Effortless, and I have the distinct

0:18

pleasure of introducing a guest whose

0:20

work exemplifies the very essence of what

0:23

we discuss here. Joining us

0:25

is Lydie Klotz, a trailblazer in the

0:27

world of behavioral science and

0:30

a master of the art of subtraction. As

0:33

a professor at the University of Virginia,

0:35

Lydie has carved a niche in understanding

0:37

how our decisions can be shaped for

0:39

greater sustainability, efficiency, and overall

0:42

impact by the simple yet

0:44

profound act of subtracting. Lydie's

0:47

book subtracts the untapped science

0:49

of less challenges

0:52

this conventional add more mentality that

0:54

opens our eyes to

0:56

the power not only

0:58

of less exactly but simplification

1:00

in general, as insights

1:02

have not only revolutionized approaches in

1:05

design but some

1:08

invaluable lessons for everyday lives.

1:11

In today's conversation we will delve into

1:13

how subtracting rather than adding can lead

1:15

to more meaningful and effective outcomes. It's

1:18

about redefining our understanding of

1:21

value, efficiency, and a world

1:23

often emphasized more

1:25

ever so more and

1:27

more of the time. So

1:30

get ready to unlearn and relearn with

1:32

us as we explore the untapped science

1:34

of less with the insightful

1:36

Lydie Klotz. Music

2:06

Welcome to the show. Thanks Greg. Great to be

2:08

here. I love that you said unlearn, right? That's

2:10

an element of subtracting and that's a hard one.

2:12

So nice. Just launches

2:14

into this subject. Help

2:17

us see why you thought

2:20

it was important enough to write

2:23

about subtraction that you invested all

2:25

of that energy that you did

2:27

into writing this book. Why?

2:30

Yeah, I've been interested in essentialism.

2:33

I read essentialism for example. It's

2:35

one of those books that continues

2:38

to shape my life and you can't even

2:40

say, oh, this thing from

2:43

essentialism is just one of those things that

2:45

kind of shapes your thinking and also

2:48

my interest in sustainability.

2:50

But I think if there's

2:52

a moment when I started to

2:54

focus on subtraction, this act of

2:56

subtraction, it was playing Legos with

2:58

my, he's nine now, but he was

3:00

three at the time, my son

3:02

Ezra. And the basic issue that

3:04

we had was we were making

3:06

a bridge out of Legos. And

3:09

one of the support columns was longer

3:11

than the other support column. So me

3:14

using a little bit of my engineering background,

3:16

I'm like, I can do

3:18

this. I'm going to be a good dad here. And I turned

3:20

around behind me to get a block to add to the shorter

3:22

column. And by

3:24

the time I had turned back around,

3:26

Ezra had removed a block from the

3:28

longer column. And that was like, okay,

3:30

cool. Because I was so

3:33

enamored with

3:35

the end state, this end state

3:37

of elegance or simplicity. And what

3:39

that showed me in the moment

3:42

was that, well, there's this step

3:44

that it takes often to get

3:46

there, which is subtracting. And

3:48

that seems to be something we've since

3:50

done a ton of research to help

3:53

understand that it's actually true. It's more than just an

3:55

anecdote from my son, that when

3:58

we're presented with a situation that we we want

4:00

to make better, whether it's at Lego

4:02

Bridge or whether it's our calendar or

4:04

whether it's our organization, we tend to

4:07

think of what we can add first

4:09

and therefore, and then move on

4:11

without even considering this whole other class

4:13

of options. I love that anecdote because

4:16

it does so simply

4:19

explain this default

4:22

tendency we have

4:24

to solve by addition. It's

4:27

not that you're saying you can't solve by

4:30

addition. Obviously you can. One

4:32

of the sections of your book is emphasizing that.

4:35

Add and subtract. The idea

4:37

of, I think it's another section called expand.

4:40

But nevertheless, the default always

4:43

to addition means that we

4:45

miss, well, perhaps it is 50%

4:48

of the solutions. You mentioned

4:50

there that you've done additional research. Can

4:52

you share a specific

4:55

item of research that you've done

4:57

and published that has

5:01

explained this tendency?

5:04

Yeah. Well, I'll share the most, I

5:06

think the most convincing for me, but

5:08

it's abstract. If you want a more

5:10

applied example, I'll give that after. We

5:14

studied this in a whole bunch of ways. One of

5:16

criticism of all the different ways you could study something

5:18

is something that you might be thinking

5:21

of with the Legos, which is like, well, that's

5:23

just what we've learned to do with

5:25

Legos. We

5:27

eventually came to this study

5:29

setup where we're giving people grid patterns

5:31

on a computer screen. The

5:34

basic setup of these grid patterns

5:36

were there were four different quadrants.

5:40

The task that people had to do was

5:42

to make the patterns symmetrical from left to

5:44

right and top to bottom. We'd

5:47

present them with pre-filled blocks. You

5:52

can make this symmetrical by adding blocks

5:54

to three quadrants or subtracting blocks from

5:57

one quadrant. That was the basic setup.

6:00

So now you've got a situation where

6:02

there are people are literally

6:04

getting the answer wrong because they want to

6:06

add, right? So they're adding in three quadrants,

6:08

even though subtracting from one quadrant is the

6:10

simpler way to solve the problem, which is

6:12

what we test them to do, to do

6:14

it as simply as possible. So

6:16

people are solving this, right? And

6:18

sure enough, they add more often

6:21

than they subtract. And then, you

6:23

know, so that that's the most convincing

6:26

specific demonstration, but then you can run

6:28

all kinds of iterations on that to

6:30

see like, okay, is this, are they

6:32

doing this because it's

6:34

a default, right? Or a heuristic, which

6:36

you mentioned. And so knowing

6:38

about heuristics, it's like, okay, what does

6:40

our brain go to first? It's

6:43

not that we can't think of other things.

6:45

It's just that that's our default, right? And

6:47

so the theory there would be, okay, well,

6:49

if you're overloaded, if you're overworked, if you're

6:51

thinking about other things, you're going to be

6:54

even more likely to rely on the heuristics,

6:56

right? Now you've got this grid

6:58

study and you can do another iteration of it where

7:00

we're like, well, let's put a scroll

7:02

of numbers across the bottom of the

7:04

screen and people have to click

7:07

on the numbers to click an F

7:09

every time a five goes by. So they're basically

7:11

texting when driving or trying to multiple the F.

7:14

And then they became even more

7:16

likely to add, right? So

7:18

it's, you know, kind of convincing evidence,

7:20

number one, that we don't think of

7:22

it even when it's the right answer

7:24

and that it seems to be

7:26

because it's just, you know, our heuristic, our

7:30

default is to think about adding first.

7:32

What is the name of the first piece of research

7:34

that you did? Is this the why our brains miss

7:36

opportunities to improve through subtraction? So

7:39

the best, the paper is on

7:41

people systematically overlook subtractive changes. And

7:43

that was in nature, which is

7:45

like the pinnacle of an academic's

7:47

career. It was on the cover

7:49

actually. So that that is where

7:51

all the studies are described. And I mean, for

7:54

an academic article, it is very easy

7:56

to understand. We put a lot of

7:59

work into. And the editors of

8:01

nature put a lot of work into making it, you

8:04

know, easy to, easy to follow.

8:06

Yeah. The name of it was people

8:08

systematically overlook opportunities to subtract. Was that

8:10

the name? People systematically

8:13

overlook subtractive changes. Subtractive

8:16

changes. That's a nice term.

8:18

Okay. So I love that. Build

8:21

it from there for us because that's,

8:24

that is interesting. A heuristic,

8:27

a default tendency to

8:30

look for addition, even when

8:32

subtraction would be more

8:35

optimal. And then adding

8:37

to that, this idea that when

8:40

you're overwhelmed, when you have more

8:43

data coming at you, when

8:45

you're in a VUCA environment,

8:47

volatility and uncertainty and ambiguity

8:50

and constant change, you

8:52

would even more fall

8:55

into that. A heuristic. Is that

8:57

just because we always fall more

8:59

into whatever our default deep programming

9:02

mindset is when we're faced with

9:04

strain and stress? Yeah. Yeah. I

9:06

mean, the, the, you're

9:08

just kind of going with your automatic thinking, but I

9:10

love that you hit that already, right? Because sometimes it

9:13

takes a really long time to get to, well, yeah,

9:16

this is a really problematic feedback loop, right?

9:18

Because the very thing we need to relieve

9:20

the complex, you

9:22

know, stressful, all this

9:25

information coming at us is

9:27

we become less likely to do

9:30

it the more information we have coming at

9:32

us. So it's this reinforcing feedback loop, but

9:34

if you can, if you can

9:36

interrupt it, you can kind of move it

9:38

in the other direction. Yeah. It's a, you

9:40

know, it's a doom loop, right? We

9:44

could call it an ever, an

9:46

ever increasing momentum

9:50

towards addition. I

9:52

think if you look at that, I mean, so we're

9:54

talking about it at the cognitive scale level, right? But

9:56

if, if you look at some of the things that

9:59

everybody. recognizes are

10:01

bloated, like legislation, for

10:03

example. I mean, there's like 17 times

10:05

more legislation now than there was in

10:07

1950. And it's, you

10:09

know, people, it's just the system

10:12

that adds more than it subtracts. Right. And part

10:14

of it is not thinking of it. Part of

10:16

it is, you know, not being able to follow

10:18

through with the subtractions, but you can think about

10:20

that in, you

10:22

know, if your workplace, right, all the things

10:25

that people complain about, why are we still doing

10:27

this? You know, a lot of it is just

10:30

kind of a product of this system that is distorted

10:33

in that way. 17

10:35

times more legislation than when? I

10:37

think 1950. I did

10:40

the calculation in the book. So it was when

10:42

I wrote the book, so a few years back,

10:44

but yeah, so then this is U.S., but I

10:46

think it like the code of federal regulations in

10:48

1950 versus the code of federal regulations

10:52

now, and it's like 17 times

10:54

larger now. And that, you know, that exceeds

10:57

the rate of economic growth

10:59

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13:57

Greg. Does

13:59

it come down to a sort

14:01

of incentive problem that

14:05

you get rewarded for adding

14:07

and it doesn't

14:10

seem to be at least

14:12

there isn't a normal social process

14:14

where you get rewarded

14:17

for having eliminated a piece

14:19

of legislation like you don't hold a

14:22

although you could so it's not

14:24

like I necessarily think you

14:27

couldn't create those kinds of things but

14:29

they don't exist normally and so you

14:31

don't have a normal celebratory cycle so

14:34

yeah is it incentives or is it what

14:37

is it really I love the words are

14:39

you I mean celebratory cycle like I've tried

14:41

to explain that to organizations that I talked

14:43

to and I I'm gonna use that

14:45

term I'll give you credit but it's that's

14:47

exactly it right I mean so let me

14:49

this I promise this will

14:51

come back to the celebratory cycle but like one

14:53

of the cool things about finding a heuristic is

14:56

then you can say well okay why why is

14:58

this happened why is this evolved over time and

15:00

one of the places that you go to our

15:02

biological reasons right and you can think of biological

15:05

reasons why we might add more than

15:07

we subtract a lot of them around

15:09

food and you know stockpiling supplies and

15:11

goods but another one that is

15:14

surprisingly biological is just this desire to

15:16

display competence right and the famous example

15:18

is the Bower birds and these are

15:20

the male Bower birds will go around

15:22

and build these ceremonial nests and then

15:24

the female Bower birds go and look

15:27

at the ceremonial nests and decide which

15:29

male to mate with and

15:32

that all kind of makes sense so

15:34

far but then the female Bower bird

15:36

goes and builds a nest to actually

15:38

raise the young so the whole point

15:40

of the male built nest is just

15:42

to show that this male bird can

15:44

move sticks around in the world and

15:46

and you know the thought

15:48

being that okay well if the those

15:51

genes can move the sticks around then those would

15:53

be good genes for the for the kid to

15:55

have and so this is this desire to show

15:57

that we can interact with the world and it's

15:59

It's one of the most robust

16:02

findings in psychology that we

16:04

all share this. It's not just

16:06

bowerbirds and it's not just males. And

16:10

we do it not just through moving

16:12

physical things around in the world, but

16:14

through task completion, right? So now we're

16:16

back to the celebratory cycle. It's

16:18

really easy to celebrate completed

16:21

tasks. Now, of course, we're going to

16:23

say like subtraction is also a completed

16:25

task, but there's oftentimes

16:29

not any evidence of it, right? When you

16:31

add the legislation or when you add the

16:33

new rule or when you add the employee or

16:35

when you add a hundred more

16:37

words to a piece of writing, there's

16:40

evidence and there's something that you can

16:42

celebrate and there's something that's displaying your

16:45

competence. When you take those things away,

16:47

I mean, you need to be more

16:49

intentional about creating the celebratory cycle. So you're right.

16:51

It's not that we can't do it, but it's

16:53

not going to, it's not going to happen without

16:55

being smart about how you, how

16:57

you build that in. Yeah. The

17:00

idea of a simplification reward

17:03

is an interesting thought experiment. And,

17:06

you know, can, can you do

17:08

it? What do you mean

17:10

by it? You know, it's,

17:12

it's, it's a non-trivial challenge because

17:14

despite the word simplify

17:17

and simplification, these words,

17:20

because they are describing something

17:22

inherently simple, obviously

17:25

simple, that, that takes

17:27

us away from the idea that actually simplicity

17:30

is a really

17:32

complex subject because we're not,

17:34

I mean, okay, fine.

17:37

You could say, well, let's simplify

17:39

by, by the thoughtless elimination of

17:41

everything. Okay. Well, fine. I mean, that,

17:44

that's simple. That's, that's,

17:46

that's like a simple way to get to simplicity

17:49

over simplifying it, but

17:51

to really figure out how

17:54

to take something, make

17:56

it better, but simpler. It's

18:00

an interesting problem to solve. One

18:03

of the examples that you cite in the

18:05

book that I really

18:07

loved was from Pennsylvania. Anna

18:10

Kishlin. Can you tell us that story?

18:13

Yeah. So she was, she's just an

18:15

amazing person around, you know, born around 1900 or

18:17

so. And she's

18:19

the, ended up being the first registered

18:22

woman architect in Pennsylvania. She volunteered for

18:24

service during World War I. There's these

18:26

great archival documents of her saying, like,

18:28

yeah, I'm happy to serve, but could

18:31

you give me something a

18:33

little more dangerous, perhaps? And

18:35

she was also kind of a serial inventor

18:37

on the side. And her

18:39

best known invention, or the one probably

18:41

that influences us the most today, is

18:43

called the K-Brick. And so what

18:46

it effectively is, is the predecessor

18:48

to the hollowed out masonry block that

18:51

looks like a squared off figure eight

18:53

that you see today. And so before,

18:55

Anna Kishlin, the blocks

18:58

were solid, right? Okay.

19:00

This is working great for a long

19:02

time. And you know,

19:04

she realized that one way to make

19:06

blocks better was to remove parts of

19:08

them. And you know, not

19:10

only did it made the blocks lighter, it made

19:13

them, you know, perform just as well, make them

19:15

easier to move around. I think there's an insight

19:17

there a little bit. The reason she

19:19

thought of it is because she really observed

19:21

workers using the blocks. And she

19:23

realized that this would be easier for them.

19:26

But so it's just better in

19:29

all these ways. And for the

19:31

history of innovation in this very

19:34

basic thing, literally a building block,

19:36

nobody thought of it until, or

19:39

nobody executed it, I guess, until

19:41

she came along. So I think, you know,

19:43

one lesson is like how powerful it can

19:45

be, but also, you know, when everybody else

19:47

is overlooking something, there's real power for people

19:49

who can use it, right? They're

19:53

exploiting this opportunity and this

19:56

inefficiency in the market of improvement, basically.

19:59

Yeah. It's an

20:01

interesting challenge. You know,

20:03

when I think about what she

20:05

did, this innovation through

20:07

simplification, it shows

20:09

it's a tangible example that

20:12

you obviously one can do

20:14

it. And secondly, that

20:16

therefore you can also celebrate it,

20:19

because that's tangible, that's real.

20:22

And here we are celebrating it and maybe

20:24

not that many people, it may be outside

20:26

of architecture or invention

20:28

or maybe the suffragette movement,

20:30

maybe they haven't heard of

20:33

Anakitlin, but still there's

20:35

plenty of people that haven't. So it's an

20:38

illustration, a hopeful illustration that

20:40

you can get to the

20:43

point where you culturally reinforce

20:46

simplification. There

20:51

are lots of other examples, right? I mean, well,

20:53

actually this is one of the curiosities

20:55

about this to me, because the most

20:57

valuable company in the world has demonstrated

20:59

that there is an actual

21:02

addition in value to people that

21:05

can be measured. You

21:07

know, I'm talking about Apple

21:09

and so it's so

21:11

odd to me, or at least it was

21:13

at first when I was seeing this

21:16

and then I said, well, why aren't other companies

21:18

doing this? Why doesn't everybody just say, let's

21:21

go for innovation through simplification.

21:23

Look over there. It's incredible

21:25

the value you're able to produce. Why

21:28

do you think people aren't just doing

21:30

that? Why don't they copy that strategy? It's

21:32

so established now through the company of

21:35

Apple. I'd be interested in what you

21:37

think too, but one of my theories is that

21:40

the end state

21:42

of simplification, it distracts

21:46

people from the fact that this is actually going

21:48

to be to do. It's

21:51

going to be like significantly harder, but when

21:53

you're adding, we've just seen just cognitively, right?

21:55

Adding comes to mind automatically. It's not that

21:57

we can't think about subtraction, you just have

21:59

to. to remind yourself or have

22:01

a good disciplined problem solving approach.

22:04

So it's a little bit harder

22:06

cognitively. And then when

22:08

it comes to things in

22:10

the real world, physical things, subtracting

22:13

is more steps because to take something

22:15

away, you have to have added in

22:17

the first place. And I think that

22:19

the building block is an interesting example.

22:21

Right? That's working okay. Everything's

22:23

fine. We're just trying to

22:25

make it better by taking something away. So,

22:28

you know, it's not that this end

22:31

state of simplicity in

22:33

the case of subtraction was

22:35

actually easier to get to. In fact, it

22:37

was harder to get to. It was more

22:39

cognitive steps and it's more kind of steps

22:42

in the real world. And, you know, I think

22:44

that's something that, I mean,

22:46

obviously Apple appreciates. I talked to another

22:48

company, a speaker company, and they were

22:50

saying, I mean, they got this, they

22:52

said when they went to just take

22:54

a component away from one of their

22:56

tried and true designs, they budgeted more

22:58

design time for it than if

23:00

you add something. And basically because the taking

23:02

something away, now you have to see how

23:05

it interacts with the whole system, when you

23:07

add something, they're like, okay, we basically know

23:09

that this isn't going to make

23:11

anything worse and we can just evaluate the additional

23:14

added benefits. So I think in some

23:16

ways people kind of underestimate how challenging

23:18

it's going to be. And I know

23:21

that, I mean, your second book, Effortless,

23:24

you know, that's one of the lessons, right, is

23:26

that this is, yes, it ends

23:29

up making your life easier, but you

23:31

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23:33

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25:51

now that you've mentioned that let's just put

25:54

that in the context right if you had

25:56

to summarize essentialism in a single word you

25:58

could say it's about focus. And if

26:00

you summarize effortless in a single

26:02

word, then it's simplification. And

26:05

that's not a bad way to think about

26:07

it. And

26:10

I think one of the most important

26:12

ideas in effortless is the

26:15

principle of building

26:17

systems that make execution

26:20

effortless. And

26:22

so yes, in exactly what you're saying, that

26:24

you invest perhaps a little more upfront, but

26:26

your return on effort, not just your return

26:28

on investment, but your return on effort, your

26:31

ROE is much higher over time

26:33

because you've built something. And that's

26:35

what you're saying here is that

26:37

simplification in this sense is whatever

26:39

the people that produce a complex product

26:41

do, and then you keep going.

26:44

Exactly. Keep going is the perfect way,

26:46

right? Yeah, it's past it. It's

26:48

past the complexity. You got to go past

26:50

it. And that's just more work.

26:53

It's more time, more thought. But it's fun. When

26:57

I think about this when writing, it's like you've

26:59

got, when you have the manuscript and now you're

27:01

editing, I find

27:04

that maybe not everybody likes it, but I find

27:06

that a much more engaging challenge.

27:08

And I think it's the same way when

27:11

I think about design. You know that it

27:13

basically works, and now you're tinkering trying to

27:15

make it even better. I

27:18

think it can be fun, even though it's more work.

27:20

Yeah, right. So that's one

27:22

challenge. It's

27:24

that idea that simplicity on this side of

27:26

complexity is worth nothing, but simplicity on the

27:29

other side of complexity is worth everything. And

27:32

so, okay, so one of the reasons

27:34

that simplification as a strategy

27:37

is underutilized is because people

27:39

just are satisfied with

27:41

complexity. That took a lot of work

27:43

to develop, something that works even though

27:45

now it's really complex and isn't as

27:47

smooth or as effortless for the

27:50

user or as simple in its design.

27:53

And I think that's a reasonably

27:55

good argument for why people don't

27:58

adopt it as a strategy. strategy,

28:00

even though it's on display

28:02

at Apple all the time. I think that's

28:04

a reasonable explanation. It's one explanation.

28:08

There's another piece, though, to the puzzle

28:10

because there's other versions of

28:12

simplicity, even in an innovation

28:14

cycle. I think about Google search engine. That's

28:18

just by default. That's just

28:20

because they didn't know what they

28:23

were doing and they weren't designers and they just

28:25

were like, okay, how do we program? What

28:28

was simplicity out of necessity or

28:31

perhaps a lack of almost

28:34

ironically a lack of design aesthetic?

28:37

It's like, okay, we're just doing this thing. We're

28:39

just doing the minimum viable product to get

28:41

this thing going. This is

28:43

our skill level, whatever. But

28:45

that simplicity was an

28:48

enormous advantage to them over

28:50

the other consumer web solutions that were

28:52

around at the time. It's

28:56

a different kind of innovation through simplicity,

28:58

but there's lots of examples of this.

29:01

Yeah, no, and it's great. I think that's really important

29:03

to point out. Sometimes that just

29:05

like going right to

29:07

simplicity, especially, yeah, is

29:11

the best approach if you can do it,

29:13

but it's hard to do. It's interesting you

29:16

said the design aesthetic, though, because if you

29:18

think about, you may be familiar with Edward

29:20

Tufti. He's like kind of the guru of

29:22

information design. One of his principles

29:25

is to maximize the

29:28

information to ink ratio.

29:31

I'm not saying Google's font is right

29:33

or anything like that, but in terms

29:36

of the information to ink ratio, it's

29:38

like, hey, here's what I need. Here's

29:40

the box. Here's some branding.

29:42

There's Google up there and go

29:44

for it. The design

29:46

aesthetic, I think, works. Yeah,

29:48

I think that's a really good point. There

29:54

are other forms of simplicity that are sometimes

29:56

called for. There are also some forms of

29:59

just doing nothing. is often called

30:01

for, right? Like, hey, maybe we shouldn't

30:03

be trying, if you're trying

30:06

to solve some problem that doesn't actually

30:08

matter, maybe doing nothing is the right

30:11

approach. So, you know, subtraction is just

30:13

like one of the, one

30:15

of these classes of opportunities

30:18

that we can try to make things

30:20

better. Yeah, but subtraction, but doing nothing

30:22

is a subtraction. It's just before we

30:24

make that thing, let's

30:26

just decide if we need to do it. And

30:29

Elon Musk describes a five step

30:32

process for problem solving in

30:35

an engineering context. And the first one

30:37

is to question the

30:39

requirements. That's awesome, yeah.

30:42

So he's front-ending the simplification into

30:44

the process. He's saying, and that

30:46

actually, I think is a non-trivial

30:48

thing for us to explore for

30:50

a moment because this is one

30:52

of the things that I found

30:54

in researching Effortless, was that

30:56

the master simplifiers seemed

30:59

to come at the

31:01

act of simplification in a

31:03

different way to the amateurs.

31:06

So like expert simplifiers were thinking

31:08

of it from the very beginning

31:10

in just the way

31:12

that Musk is describing here, but it was also true

31:15

for jobs and it was also true, you

31:18

know, at Amazon with

31:20

Bezos. And the principle, well,

31:22

let me just give an example of it first. So

31:25

when Amazon was first up and

31:28

running, they had, let's say a

31:30

hundred employees, they

31:32

have a meeting to discuss

31:35

the checkout process. And at

31:37

the time, you know, maybe there's 28 clicks

31:39

or something in the process and they designed a very

31:42

capable engineer to think

31:45

through that process and to simplify it because the

31:47

drop-off rate was extraordinary, right? And you can imagine

31:49

e-commerce is brand new. I mean, even now you

31:52

see the problem, but at the

31:54

time it was immense because people just felt so

31:56

weird putting in their credit card and

31:58

you know, you have to date. put in

32:00

each information and it was the first part

32:02

of your address, click, next part, click and

32:04

so on. And so he

32:07

worked on that problem for two months. He

32:10

tried to simplify every step in the

32:12

process. In a way what we were

32:14

just describing about this approach

32:16

to simplification as the final thing, you

32:19

know, let's now do a

32:21

bit more than the less

32:24

conscientious designer would do. But

32:27

somewhere in that meeting where they finally were

32:29

coming together, just the three of them talking

32:31

about this, Bezos turns to him and says,

32:33

look, I'm not talking about simplifying every

32:35

step in the process. I'm talking about no

32:39

process. I'm talking about this

32:42

is how the one click

32:44

selling comes to be. So

32:46

he protects that for the next 20 years.

32:49

You can argue, people have

32:51

argued that it was a bit unfair for Amazon

32:53

to be able to

32:55

maintain control of something so

32:57

rudimentary. When I

33:00

spoke to the engineer who's no longer at

33:02

Amazon, he told me that he

33:04

was he first of all, he completely defends Amazon's

33:07

right to have

33:09

that control, you know,

33:12

for a period of time like IP because he

33:14

said everyone was thinking about that problem

33:16

the way I was. All of our

33:18

competitors thought about it that way. Only

33:21

Bezos had the insight that

33:23

what we need is not

33:25

to sort of streamline every step that

33:27

we already have. How do

33:29

you eliminate all of those steps? And this

33:31

idea I came to think about this is

33:33

start with zero was exactly

33:36

what Apple did with with DVD, you

33:38

know, the DVD burning software that he

33:40

had where they went from five thousand

33:42

pages to a simplified version. And he

33:44

was like, no, no, I

33:46

mean one step, one

33:48

little rectangle and pull your

33:50

content there and press burn. That's the

33:53

app that he wanted. No one

33:55

else thought like that. And so

33:57

I'm curious about this, what your thoughts

33:59

are. these competent

34:02

subtractors who seem

34:04

to just come at all problems

34:07

with this simplification first

34:09

thinking. Yeah it's almost like

34:12

they're subtracting,

34:14

they're they're taking on the kind

34:16

of mental model right of

34:19

the situation first and and

34:22

seeing if subtracting can be used there. I guess

34:24

what I mean by that is like yeah you've

34:26

got the you know you've got the 17 steps

34:29

in the Amazon process and that's the thing

34:31

that you're trying to simplify but

34:33

before digging into the 17 steps

34:36

they're questioning the mental model of the whole

34:39

the whole purchasing process right and

34:41

and can can we subtract from

34:44

that and I think that as

34:46

you know not surprisingly it's it's really

34:49

really hard to to subtract from

34:52

the things that we think already

34:54

right there's a there's a

34:56

famous one of my favorite psychology studies

34:58

this guy Leon Festinger he was studying

35:00

this and basically trying to figure out

35:02

trying to have evidence of like what

35:05

happens to people when they're confronted

35:07

with like very obvious evidence that

35:09

something they thought isn't true and

35:11

so he joined a doomsday cult

35:13

and which is a brilliant premise

35:15

for a study because if you like now

35:17

you've got either you've got the evidence or

35:19

you're in the cult and when the doomsday

35:21

comes in you're you're covered but so he

35:23

you know what happened is people are

35:26

sitting you know waiting for the doomsday

35:28

to come the clock strikes midnight nothing happens

35:30

they you know five minutes in they're like

35:33

still debating if that's the official clock

35:35

of the doomsday and then nothing

35:37

happens about four in the

35:39

morning the cult leader is like well

35:41

look we saved off the doomsday with

35:43

our with our faith right and so

35:46

rather than like change this belief that's

35:48

so obviously true you're kind of bending

35:51

it around right and trying to you

35:53

trying to fix the 17 steps or

35:55

modifying the 17 steps to go back

35:57

to your example versus just saying hey

36:00

look, you know, my previous

36:02

conception of this needs to be

36:05

completely modified. I don't know if

36:08

that's helpful at all, but I

36:11

do think that there's a step there. You know, I

36:13

talk about it in my book that like the first

36:15

step is to subtract before

36:17

you improve, right? Subtract from

36:19

the your

36:22

conception of the problem before you dig

36:25

into looking at things that you might

36:27

subtract. For everybody listening,

36:30

what is one thing that you heard today that

36:33

you can put into

36:35

action? And by that I mean

36:37

put into subtraction. You know, what's

36:39

one thing that you can eliminate

36:42

from your life?

36:45

From the physical things around you? What's one idea

36:47

that stands with you? You can now implement

36:50

to the benefit and simplification

36:52

and subtraction so that you

36:54

can learn to breathe again. What is

36:57

one person that you can share this

36:59

with? How can you continue

37:01

this conversation now that this conversation has

37:04

come to a close? Thank you. Really thank

37:06

you for listening. This

37:19

episode is brought to you by the Yap Media

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Podcast Network. I'm Hala Taha, CEO

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Yap Media and host of Yap Young

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