For many, the courageous entrepreneur is the one who rushes, who accumulates, who dares to try everything. The dominant account in conferences, biographies and TV sets is that of conquest: new markets, new products or new funds. However, behind the scenes of sustainable and efficient companies, another virtue is just as decisive: renunciation.
Give up overly tempting but trashy markets, brilliant but incompatible technologies with their vision or even the modes that agitate competitors but do not bring any lasting value.
This is what some researchers and strategists call “the strategy of subtraction”: fewer initiatives, but more coherence. Less dispersion, but more impact. The value of a leader is no longer measured only in what he knows how to kiss, but also (and above all?) To what he knows how to dismiss.
Giving up is not to flee: an active choice
To say no often looks like an admission of weakness. We often give up by default: lack of means, lack of skills, lack of opportunities. However, the real strategy of subtraction is not a capitulation. It is a voluntary and lucid approach, which consists in withdrawing everything that parasites the central mission of the company.
However, renouncing it can be protecting and affirming the discipline of concentration.
Three dimensions of subtraction
1/ Say no to the markets
In the expansion frenzy, the temptation is great to open its product to all possible segments. Software designed for SMEs suddenly attracts the attention of large companies. A service designed for a region receives requests from abroad. Should we go? Not always.
Growth can kill a business more surely than stagnation. Multiplying markets is multiplying regulatory, logistics, marketing constraints. It is sometimes to sacrifice the excellence of his core business.
2/ Say no to technologies
The fascination for technological novelty is a recurring trap. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, augmented reality, the metarers … Each wave of hype encourages leaders to wonder: “What are we doing with this technology?” »»
But this logic is reversed. The real question should be: “Does this technology serve my mission?” »»
Netflix, for example, could have investing massively in 3D when Hollywood engulfed there in the early 2010s. She said no. She preferred to focus her means on streaming and original content. Ten years later, the story agreed to him.
3/ Say no to fashions
There is no shortage of managerial and organizational fashions: Lean, Agile, Holacracy, Horizontal Management … Some are useful, others are more of the slogan than a depth transformation.
A courageous direction sometimes consists in saying: “No, we will not follow this trend, even if everyone is rushing into it. »»
This is what Apple did by refusing corporate social networks or internal marketplaces while other giants were venturing there. She preferred to keep a simple consistency: create desirable, closed but integrated products.
Why give up is so difficult
If the subtraction strategy is so precious, why remains minority? Because giving up is painful at three levels.
First, at the psychological level. To say no is to admit that you can’t everything. The leader’s ego, nourished by success, often finds it difficult to accept the limit.
Then, at the social level. To refuse a project is sometimes to disappoint a team, investors or partners. The manager must assume to be unpopular in the short term.
Finally at the cultural level. In an economy obsessed with growth, any removal looks like a betrayal of the dominant model. The media do not celebrate those who refused an opportunity; They tell those who seized her.
The courage to give up is therefore invisible courage, less spectacular than that of conquering, but just as decisive.
The hidden benefits of subtraction
Between the current ideas, the leaders who practice subtraction harvest sustainable advantages:
- Strategic clarity. A tightened mission is more readable for employees, customers and investors.
- Better allocated resources. To say no to certain projects makes it possible to invest more deeply in those who really count.
- Reinforced attractiveness. In a saturated world, coherent brands inspire confidence.
- Resilience. By avoiding dispersion, the company is better resistant to crises and fashion fluctuations.
3 contemporary examples
- Airbnb, at the start of the pandemic, had to give up its diversification (high -end experiences, transport projects). The company has refocused on its basic activity: housing rental. This return to the essentials allowed him to go through the crisis and to succeed in his IPO.
- Michelin refused the fashion for industrial diversification in all directions to stay centered on tires and some adjacent sectors where his competence was unique.
- Ikea said no to total hyper-diagitalization. She continues to believe in the physical experience of stores, despite the pressures of pure e-commerce. Result: a hybrid model that remains profitable.
How to exercise in practice?
For business leaders and creators, renouncing cannot be improvised. This presupposes a method.
1/ Clarify the mission.
The clearer the reason for being, the easier it is to decide. Any opportunity that is not aligned with it must be dismissed.
2/ Evaluate the hidden cost.
Each new market or product generates invisible costs (organizational complexity, managerial dilution). These costs must be weighed as much as the expected benefits.
3/ set up a renunciation ritual.
Some companies organize regular “disinvestment meetings” to decide what they will stop, and not just what they will launch.
4/ Communicate the “no”.
An ill -explained renunciation can demobilize. It is necessary to make it a positive story, centered on the concentration of forces.
Maturity leadership
The subtraction strategy requires a particular type of leadership: maturity leadership. Where the beginner entrepreneur is defined by the audacity to try everything, the experienced leader is distinguished by the art of selecting.
Steve Jobs, when he returned to Apple in 1997, deleted 70 % of the current projects to focus on some flagship products. He said: “Innovation is not to say yes to everything. That is to say no to a thousand things. And this radical choice saved the business.
