Less, but Better - The Discipline of Organizational Focus
Less but Better Week 1
By Rick Aman onThe Courage to Stop
Opening the Series: Why Less May Be Better
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Leadership has a natural bias toward addition. We launch new programs, create new initiatives, establish goals, and develop new measures. Much of this work begins for good reasons. A need emerges, an opportunity presents itself, funding becomes available, or someone has an idea worth pursuing. We respond because leaders are expected to move organizations forward. “Don’t just stand there, do something….” What we are much less comfortable doing is stopping.
During my years as a community college president, I rarely encountered a shortage of good ideas. The more difficult challenge was determining which ideas deserved our limited time, money, talent, and attention. Every organization eventually discovers that there are more worthwhile things it could do than it has the capacity to do well.
Organizations also tend to accumulate activities much more easily than they shed them. A program begins because a community need existed ten years ago. A committee is created to solve a particular problem. A report is developed because someone once needed the information. A meeting gets placed on the calendar and gradually becomes permanent. Over time, each becomes part of the organizational landscape and culture. People may no longer remember why something began, but they know that it has always been there.
That is the premise of this new five-week series, Less, but Better: The Discipline of Organizational Focus. I want to explore a simple, but sometimes uncomfortable proposition: perhaps stronger organizations are not always those doing more. Perhaps they are the organizations that are clearest about what matters most and disciplined enough to stop doing what no longer deserves their capacity.
This is not an argument for indiscriminate cost cutting or abandoning programs simply because they are difficult or expensive. It is about organizational focus. Over the next several weeks, I will explore when good programs may no longer serve the mission, the hidden cost of organizational clutter, how leaders can determine what should stop, and how the capacity created through subtraction can be reinvested in what matters most. That journey begins with the courage to stop.
The Leadership Challenge of Stopping
Starting something carries energy. There may be a ribbon cutting, an announcement, a new initiative, or at least a sense of momentum. Ending something feels very different, Programs develop constituencies, processes develop owners, committees develop members, and traditions become embedded in the budget. After enough time, the question can subtly shift from, “Why are we doing this?” to, “How could we possibly stop doing this?” That is where organizational inertia begins.
One of the lessons I learned as a president is that past success does not automatically justify future investment. Something can have been exactly the right decision ten years ago and still be the wrong investment today. Recognizing that reality does not diminish the people who created it or the value it once produced. Circumstances change. Students change. Communities change. Technology changes. Workforce needs change. Organizations themselves change, and leadership requires us to periodically ask whether our commitments still serve the organization we are becoming. There is an old saying: “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like obsolescence even less.” The challenge for leaders is not simply deciding what new things to begin. It is also having the courage to recognize when something that once mattered has run its course and then choosing to stop.
Sometimes we need to reframe that assumption. The decision to stop something does not necessarily mean it failed. Sometimes it succeeded and its purpose was fulfilled. Sometimes another approach now accomplishes the same outcome more effectively. Sometimes the need has changed. And sometimes, if we are willing to admit it, something simply no longer produces enough value to justify the resources devoted to it. That leads to an important leadership question: What are we continuing primarily because we have always done it? The answer may reveal more about organizational strategy than another twenty pages of a strategic plan.
Strategic Subtraction Is Stewardship
Every organization operates with finite resources. Budgets are finite, employee energy is finite, leadership attention is finite, and time may be the most limited resource of all. When we say yes to one activity, we are implicitly saying no to something else. That is why I view strategic subtraction as a form of stewardship.
Clutter has a cost. People become busy without always being productive. Leaders move rapidly from meeting to meeting. Strategic plans grow longer. Priorities multiply. Employees hear that everything is important, which eventually means that nothing is truly prioritized. The purpose of stopping, therefore, is not primarily to save money. The greater objective is to create capacity. I would encourage boards and executive teams to examine activities through three lenses: Does this still advance our mission? Can we demonstrate meaningful impact from the resources invested? And what other opportunity might become possible if some of those resources were redirected? These questions change the conversation. Instead of asking whether an activity is good or bad, leaders ask whether it remains among the best uses of organizational capacity.
Using “WHO” prompt + AI to Challenge Our Assumptions
Artificial intelligence gives leaders another way to engage this conversation. I am not suggesting that AI should decide which programs should continue or which activities should stop. Those decisions require human judgment, organizational knowledge, governance, and an understanding of the people affected. But AI can be useful for something leaders sometimes struggle to do: challenge assumptions.
I have been using a simple prompting approach I call WHO. The purpose is to make our interaction with AI more intentional.
The W asks, WHO is the AI? We begin by giving AI a role appropriate to the problem. For this conversation, I might say, “Act as an experienced nonprofit strategist who is willing to challenge legacy practices rather than simply affirm them.”
The H means, HELP AI with instruction and context. AI cannot understand an organization simply because we provide the name of a college or nonprofit. We need to explain the mission, strategic priorities, programs, outcomes, costs, staffing, community expectations, and whatever other information would help AI understand the situation or context.
The O defines WHAT outcome do we want? Rather than asking AI, “What should we cut?” I might ask it to identify activities that warrant deeper leadership examination based on mission alignment, measurable impact, resource consumption, duplication, or opportunity cost, and then identify what evidence leadership should review before reaching a conclusion.
That difference matters. AI is most valuable here not as the decision-maker, but as a second set of eyes. It can identify patterns or themes, challenge assumptions, compare alternatives, and ask questions that may not naturally emerge around the leadership table. A leadership team might provide AI with a list of recurring programs, meetings, reports, committees, and strategic initiatives and ask where duplication may exist. It could also ask AI to argue the opposite position and explain why those same activities might need to continue. I always like to assign a number to the What. “Provide three programs that the board might consider for review.”
The goal is not to outsource leadership. The goal is to improve the quality of the questions leadership considers. One way I do this is to ask AI, before it responds to my prompt, to ask me three questions that would help it better understand my intent. Those questions often expose missing context, unclear assumptions, or gaps in my thinking. By giving AI greater clarity and context before it responds, I usually get a much more useful result.
Closing: Courage Creates Capacity
Organizational focus requires more than deciding what to pursue. It also requires the courage to decide what no longer deserves our time, attention, and resources. Programs, meetings, processes, and initiatives may once have served an important purpose, but preserving yesterday’s commitments can limit tomorrow’s opportunities. The strongest organizations understand their purpose clearly enough to make choices and protect their capacity for what matters most.
As this series begins, I would encourage every board and executive team to ask one question: If we were not already doing this, would we choose to start it today?
The answer may be uncomfortable, but it may also reveal capacity that has been hiding in plain sight. Next week, I will take that question one step further in When Good Programs No Longer Serve the Mission.
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At Aman and Associates, I work with governing boards, CEOs, and executive teams to create greater clarity around purpose, priorities, and organizational direction. Through board retreats, CEO mentoring, and facilitated strategic conversations, I help organizations identify what matters most and create the focus needed to act on it. Sometimes the path toward stronger performance begins not by adding another initiative, but by having the courage to ask what we can stop.
Rick Aman, PhD, Aman & Associates - rick@rickaman.com | rickaman.com