Improvement Insights Blog
The Art of Subtraction
In Matthew May’s new book, The Laws of Subtraction (McGraw-Hill 2013), he outlines some key concepts refined from his years with Toyota:
At the heart of every difficult decision lie three tough choices:
- What to pursue versus what to ignore.
- What to leave in versus what to leave out.
- What to do versus what to don’t.
The key is to remove the stupid stuff: anything obviously excessive, confusing, wasteful, unnatural, hazardous, hard to use or ugly. This is the art of subtraction.
Isn’t that the core of Lean?
