Each of us pays rent on yesterday’s decisions.
This weekend, I rented a 15-foot U-Haul to help my mother clear out the last of her condominium before replacing the flooring. We loaded it with furniture, boxes that hadn’t been opened in decades, and the last of the old carpet. By the time we finished unloading everything at the dump, one thought kept running through my mind.
It wasn’t the volume that struck me. It was realizing that most of those possessions hadn’t become useless overnight. They had simply outlived the circumstances that once made them valuable. Some had been moved from one home to another for years. Others had quietly remained in place because no one had ever stopped to ask whether they still belonged.
As I drove away from the dump, I couldn’t help but wonder how many organizations were carrying around their own version of those forgotten boxes. Every project, committee, governance process, report, approval, meeting, technology platform, and strategic initiative was usually created for a good reason. At the time, each solved a legitimate problem and represented a thoughtful investment of organizational resources. The problem isn’t that organizations make poor decisions. It’s that organizations are remarkably good at creating resource commitments but surprisingly poor at releasing them.
Over time, those commitments quietly accumulate. Some continue creating tremendous value. Others simply outlive the circumstances that originally justified them. Rarely does anyone revisit them with the same rigor that went into creating them. I refer to this accumulation as Organizational Clutter—deferred decision-making made visible.
Addition is politically easier than subtraction. New initiatives generate enthusiasm. New governance structures demonstrate action. New reporting requirements create visibility. Removing something, on the other hand, is often interpreted as taking something away, even when it strengthens the organization. As a result, resource commitments continue to accumulate while comparatively little attention is given to whether they still deserve the resources they consume.
One trenchant observation has remained remarkably consistent throughout my consulting career. I have never conducted an initial review of an organization’s governance documents without finding assumptions—often implied rather than explicitly stated—that no longer reflected reality. The governance itself wasn’t necessarily flawed. The assumptions had simply become obdurate, surviving long after the conditions that created them had changed.
Every decision inherits the lifespan of its assumptions. Organizations need a disciplined way to periodically identify and release resource commitments that no longer align with reality. I call this discipline Strategic Subtraction.
One of the most difficult exercises I facilitate during an organizational redesign isn’t deciding what activites to change or add. It’s deciding what activiteis to stop. Leaders usually know that some work no longer creates sufficient value. The challenge is reaching agreement on which resource commitments should finally be released.
Organizations don’t remain adaptable by continually adding more. They remain adaptable by ensuring today’s resource commitments still reflect today’s reality. Every organization is perfectly designed for yesterday. Leadership determines whether it remains designed for tomorrow.
Executive Insight
Every organization accumulates resource commitments over time. Most were the right decisions when they were made. The challenge is that assumptions change while the commitments built upon them often remain. Strategic renewal requires more than adding new initiatives. It also requires periodically reevaluating and releasing commitments that no longer align with reality. I call that discipline Strategic Subtraction.
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