478 How Your Environment Shapes You Without You Realizing It with Leidy Klotz

Welcome to Partnering Leadership, a top global leadership podcast for purpose-driven leaders with a growth mindset. Seeking to learn from the leadership journey of change makers and business insights from leading global thinkers. For additional leadership insights and bonus content, visit us at partneringleadership.com. Now here's your host, Mahan Tavakouli.

Lady Klutz, welcome back to Partnering Leadership. I am thrilled to have you in this conversation with me. Lighty, it is such an incredible jewelry. We talked back in June 2022. I had read your book even earlier than that, late 2021. And Sutract had such a significant impact on me and I see its application consistently in organizations. I would encourage my audience to listen to that conversation, read the book. Would love to get your thoughts on why you think we have this tendency to feel like in order to improve, we have to add rather than the point that you make so brilliantly with so many examples, also considering subtraction.

Yeah. There are two major hurdles. And the first one is probably more surprising. So first, we don't even think of it as an option, right? You're muddling through and trying to make the world a better place, trying to change things from how they are to how we want them to be. And in the act of making that decision, which the research shows in the book talks about, we think about what we can add to make the situation better, whether it's a block to a Lego structure, or whether it's an idea to an argument, or whether it's another task to the meeting agenda. And we don't even think about subtracting as a way to make things better, right? We don't even think about what could and then once you get over that hurdle of thinking about it, now you're in the real world, right? And when you suggest subtracting something or when you do subtract something, it's often it has a noticeability problem, right? You don't necessarily get credit for it. So then if you're the one who subtracts the meeting and goes from a like a weekly frequency to a bi-weekly frequency, maybe at the beginning they're like, oh, Maehan really helped us out and he did this. But after a month, nobody's like, oh, that subtracted meeting and you're nobody's getting credit for that. So we really have to work at how do you build subtraction into the processes, I think is key, which is I'm sure you talk about that in your talks. And it's great that you're spreading that message because when I talk to organizations, the ones that are able to actually benefit from the idea are the ones that they don't rely on just like thinking of subtraction in the moment it's built into the processes, right? So it's like maybe in the annual review process, you're asking people, what are the three things that you're really excited about doing next year? That's great. Now what are the three things that you're gonna stop doing so that you can do that? And if that's formulaic, then number one, people are going to think about it, right? Because it's right there on the form. But it's also now it's signals that your boss cares about it, right? And that this is an okay thing to do in this organization. Obviously, there are a lot of reasons. I think the book is 270 pages, but those are two huge ones. Like don't think about it. And then once we do think about it, it's often harder to get credit for it.

What are some of the challenges you have seen with people who buy into the idea trying to put it into practice?

Taking it from something that just gets dealt with when I'm there talking to something that is thought about as continuous strategy, right? And that is challenging with any idea, but I think particularly with this one, because it's so easy to come in and give some clever examples and they see, yeah, and then maybe we do an activity and they think about a meeting that they can get rid of and a workflow or whatever, and then it's done, and that's it. And I think the ones that are successful have bigger, are able to instill it in larger ways, like to make it more visible, right? I work there organizations, for example, that will have, okay, simplify as one of the four kind of tenets of their strategic plan, right? And now I know that sometimes that stuff can get lost in the background too. But now, if that's brought up in every meeting, like how are we simplifying? How is this always going to be top of mind as a strategy? And I know that seems like I'm arguing for my thing to be the thing that you focus on, but this is a fundamental way to change things from how they are to how we want them to be. And I don't think it's too much that is always should be top of mind and that the organizations are thinking about that. So I say the ones that don't get the extra oomph out of it haven't really thought about how to build it into what's happening all the time.

I couldn't agree with you more, Lady, in that from what I've seen, it requires a real disciplined approach. It's one thing to understand the concept to agree. I've had clients and boards read your book. They not, they conceptually understand it, they might even talk about it. But the discipline of incorporating it when you're thinking about the organizational strategy or the priorities within the organization takes a different effort.

Yeah, and thanks so much for recommending that just means the most as a somebody who's trying to bring the research into the world that like people who are using making the world a better place are using these ideas is just the best. And a couple other things. When I talk to organizations about it, it can be easy to fixate on one subtraction, right? Like maybe meetings, and we get focused on that. So that's another way that we don't get everything out of it that we could. And I'll send you this, but I'll do a subtracting game or I call it something else if the group isn't playful. And the point of the game is to get people to think about different ways that they could subtract. So it's like you can subtract from physical things, you could subtract from processes, and you could subtract from ideas, right? So, like some of the most powerful subtractions are when a group is like, hey, we actually are not a software company, right? And we need to get rid of that mindset. What we are doing is something totally different. So like subtracting ideas is really hard. And so just helping them think across the different categories, but then also like encouraging big subtractions, right? Sometimes, again, it's like we poke around the edges, and it's easy to think about these like little kind of waste elimination subtractions, which are fine and useful and like time well spent, but it also doesn't get you to the really big things. Oh, we've got three things in our mission statement, we only care about two of them. Like that's a big subtraction, or we've got annual reviews. I already gave the annual review example, but one organization I worked with is like the having stop doings in the annual reviews is a good idea, but actually we don't use the annual reviews for anything. So what if we just get rid of the annual reviews? And like the bigger that people are thinking, the more other people start thinking big, and then you get these ideas that can really change things. And then those are subtractions that are visible, right? Those are ones where somebody's gonna get credit and people know that your organization is like doing this intentionally. One example of that, and then I'll stop, but it's nobody looks at the iPhone and says that Apple couldn't think of more buttons to add, right? They're like, this is intentional subtraction for competitive advantage. And I think those when you get the bigger subtractions or like the more extreme subtractions, then people can see that you're doing it on purpose.

I love that. Rather than tweaking at the edges where a lot of our initial thinking ends up being moving up to the real strategic conversations around subtraction. So I can take hours talking about subtract. However, you have also come out with another outstanding book in a good place how the spaces where we live, work, and play can help us thrive. So, Lady, what took you from this outstanding book and research on subtraction to looking at how the places and the spaces impact us?

Yeah, that's a great question. I see them as very related, where subtract the idea for that came from thinking about how we change the physical world from how it is to how we want it to be. And this is the in a good place is much more about like how the physical world is influencing us and we're influencing the physical world and specifically our psychological needs, right? What do we get out of this relationship with our surroundings? And like, I guess the relationship is that these the idea comes from this intersection between the physical world and what's going on in our brains, right? And this is what I think is the most important things for people to know about that intersection that can really help them have better lives.

You opened a book with your friend Kirsten sending you a photo from the beautiful cabana overlooking the Indian Ocean in Kenya. Now I wonder, Lady, is that my family and I took a couple of vacations this summer, and in most cases, I found my daughters and a lot of other people experiencing that environment through their screens. So how does that, and quite possibly with AI glasses coming out, more augmented reality? How do you think technology is impacting our interactions with those physical surroundings?

Yeah, it's detrimental. And again, I get that there are good things about technology. We're talking now because of it. I use AI to make things easier for me. I'm not anti-technology, but the book is about these core psychological needs that we all have for agency and for growth and for connection. And these are not just three out of a hundred psychological needs. These are the big three. And all of them are totally dependent on our relationship with our physical surroundings, right? So, like to feel agency, to feel like we can, we have the ability to change our surroundings. I have the ability to adjust this window or to move to a different space if the one I'm in is too noisy, or to put myself in a private room if I'm in a crowded room. That's this feeling of agency. The feeling of growth is like learning from navigating your surroundings, right? Or doing things in your surroundings. So it could be from building them, but it could also just be from you're walking around Washington, DC, and now you realize, oh, look, I can go off the beaten path a little bit, or I discovered this new neighborhood and I learned things about myself. I came upon these like little challenges and I figured them out. And then obviously the connection with something bigger than yourself, right? Like the phone is keeping you fundamentally in your head. I know that we're connecting a little bit now, connecting with the world and connecting with the people who are in it. And I don't want to get too much into like the science-y part of it, but it's like the reason that we have those psychological needs is because they helped us deal with our physical environment when we were roaming around in wild environments, right? If you were compelled to create shelter or to manipulate your environment, you were more likely to survive. So basically, those psychological needs are still here. When we're on our phones, we're not meeting them as well as we would when we're engaged in the world.

You mentioned about being in Washington, D.C. and getting lost and finding a neighborhood. I wonder if that almost ever happens to us anymore. We all have ways or Google Maps. We know exactly from point A to point B how to get there and not get lost and have those experiences.

Yeah. There's a famous study of taxicab drivers like before, and like they looked at the ones who were using GPS and the ones who were still relying on their own like brains to navigate. And it like it's one of the studies that shows like the dangers of like cognitive offloading, right? It's like if athletes stop lifting weights, you're not training these, it's not a muscle, obvious. It's not the same exact thing, but you're not keeping yourself fit mentally. So that's exactly part of what's happening there, right? Like that the GPS is making it. And again, like some of these things we do want to offload, right? Some of these things you might say, that's fine. I don't need to get this experience. But if you recognize that one of the benefits of walking around Washington, D.C. is that you're keeping your brain fresh and that you're learning that you can do semi-hard things, then that's a decision that you can make deliberately.

So you mentioned the fact that you also organized a book around agency, competence, and then connection. You tell a beautiful story about houses in Chile, about agency.

Yeah. So these half houses in Chile are famous in architectural circles. They've won some top architecture prizes, but basically they're public housing. And what they did was create the public housing where there's a portion of the house that's provided that's the same in every unit, and it's got the basic things like kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. But then there's half of the house that's unfinished, it's just the shell. And then people, as they build their lives, can turn that space into what they want it to be. Maybe it's more bedrooms, maybe it's a workshop. And it creates a really cool aesthetic because it looks better than a regular housing development, right? Because you've got this unifying theme, but then you've also got the people creating their own unique parts of it. But the what's happening inside the people is much more important, right? It's now there's a much greater ownership over this space, right? And a recognition that, hey, I have agency over my space. And now you're realizing I have agency over other things in my lives, right? It's something the half-house is one example. It's something that humanitarian workers have figured out that refugees, these are people who have had all their agency taken away, right? They've like can't even be in the country that they want to be in, and they certainly don't have housing. That meeting their basic housing needs is important, but meeting them in a way that they're able to shape as opposed to just plunking them in an environment that has already been pre-designed for them, giving them some autonomy in agency and how they can design that environment again, is like the agency in your physical environment is like a gateway to agency in the rest of your life.

So, Lady, I wonder if this relates to, I'm sure you're familiar with what's called the IKEA effect, that we value things that we help build a lot more than the identical item that was built and given to us. Does this relate to that?

Yeah, certainly. Certainly. And I think the IKEA effect, you described it exactly correctly, right? So the thing that you've built is worth what it's worth, plus it's worth the effort that you put into it, right? But I think the IKEA effect is like one of all of these like different like behavioral kind of quirks and biases that we have, whereas agency and growth are the bigger, and even connection, right? Be like all of those are part of what makes the IKEA effect work.

Then I wonder, Lighty, from an organizational perspective, we have been going through since the pandemic a lot of conversations around the physical environment, whether it is of any value or not. Would love to get your thoughts on agency in the work environment and in the physical work environment and the impact that can have.

Yeah. And I wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal on this. So yeah, I think that the point there is like we have these conversations about the work environment, and it's a mistake to not be thinking about agency as a factor, right? Like, how is this contributing or taking away from your employees' agency, right? And is it advertising the same things that you're saying about the agency that you want your employees to have? Because every mission statement is like, hey, we want our employees, they're really important and have a lot of say here, but then the physical space can say something totally different. It might say, you literally have to be here from this hour to this hour, plus the certain people have certain offices, plus they're and you have your cubicle, right? And or that I know some places where you literally have to clean the desks at the end of the day to make it so that there's like a everything looks the same, which again, that could be what you want to do. Just know that it's probably taking some agency away from your employees. But then when you think about agency, you realize that there are multiple ways to meet it. The nice thing is it doesn't necessarily require hiring an architect and doing a renovation, right? It could be as simple as saying, look, we've got this common area here. It seems like nobody's using it. You know you're allowed to use the common area, right? Or the boss holds a meeting in the common area and then makes it obvious that other people can do the same thing, right? Or taking demonstrating your own agency with the space, right? So having walking meetings, if it's a topic that's more appropriate to discuss in a walking meeting, and then other people are going to see that's a thing that you can do and that they have this say in how their surroundings are working for them. And then of course, there's simple things like allowing people to decorate would give them more agency. And if you do a renovation, how do you bring in the voice of the people who are going to work there, right? Because you can do this fancy renovation, and if people don't feel like they've contributed to it, then it's not going to have that IKEA effect that you're talking about. Also, our relationship with our surroundings is an ongoing thing that can always change. And to treat it as the only time you have agency is when we do a big renovation is really missing a lot of the big opportunities, right? Maybe you've got a new project and the boss says, we're going to assign this project team to the new project. What space do you want to use? And what do you need to have in there to be able to do the project, right? That's a way to give agency that doesn't cost anything. And it's also showing people that their relationship to this physical space is always changing.

Part of what you show well is that it actually makes a huge difference to us as humans. That space and that environment.

Yeah. And it's such a weird situation because it's really easy to feel like the space is the one thing that you don't have control over, right? It's like, how can I change the location of the meeting? Or how can I change the meeting room? But it might be the most influential lever that we actually have, right? It's like it's really hard to change people's minds to. And even just going to the meeting example, like, well, you can change the whole vibe of the meeting by showing up 20 minutes early, right? One of the studies I talk about in the book is this negotiation study. It was a really elegant experiment where the people, there were two groups, and the only difference between the groups is that one group got to the room where they were going to negotiate 20 minutes sooner. And what that did was like create this home field advantage. And then the group that was in that room achieved better outcomes in the negotiation. It was just 20 minutes sitting in some silly room for an experiment. But that made them feel like this was their house. They were territorial. And we can show up to a meeting 20 minutes early and get comfortable in the room and do some work and maybe even set up the chairs how you want them set up. And our goal is not always to win a negotiation. More often the goal is to have good collaboration, but it always helps to be more comfortable in a space. So yeah, space is something that we can do something about and it could really change how things go.

If we take the time to notice it, give the example of Tessa architecture student walking past these beautiful historic buildings at UVA, anyone who hasn't been there, magnificent campus, but not necessarily noticing it. And I find that's the case with most of us when we stop noticing the physical environment, although, as you said, it has a significant impact on us.

We're wired to habituate, right? She walked by Memorial Gym every day and didn't pose a threat, right? So now she could focus on other things. And there's a famous study of habituation with the location of fire extinguishers, which I always think is funny to share. So where's the closest fire extinguisher to your office at work, right? And nobody knows. And they're painted red and they're designed to be noticeable, right? It's just so easy to move around in the world and stop noticing things. And it's good in a lot of cases, right? You wouldn't want to have to ponder the meaning of your baseboard and carpets and the molding every time you walked through your house. But it also prevents us from seeing like magnificent things like Memorial Gym, but also things that are opportunities to change, like the meeting environment or things that are sending messages that we don't want to be sent.

We don't necessarily need to notice everything. However, when we take the time to notice, some of the physicality of the world around us impacts us, the decision making, the behaviors. So that's what we need to take time to notice. Now, the other thing you also mentioned, in addition to that agency, Lady, is that the physical world helps us develop a certain level of competence. We talked a little bit about technology, but what I'm seeing is technology is keeping us from interacting with that physical. World more. What I wonder is, in your view, what do you think are interactions that are worth preserving with that physical world? And what are interactions we don't need to worry about that we lose as a result of technology?

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm trying to think of the most general jumping in point of what would be a good general rule for that. Obviously, the things that you enjoy about the physical world is don't forget about those. So going for a walk at night through the neighborhood or through the woods, right? And that just makes you feel good. Partly because you're moving your body, but partly because you're getting exposed to all these sounds and smells and getting out of your head a little bit. You need a certain dose of that every day, right? Just to be grounded. That's where the term grounded comes from. Are you in this world?

I imagine you are not a huge fan of virtual and or then augmented reality, being that it disconnects us from that physical environment.

Yeah, I like to think that I'm fair, but it's two-dimensional. Yeah, maybe some of it is like getting to be 3D simulation. So I think you're just missing so much in those interactions that you get in these real-world interactions that are, no matter how complex the pixels are on the screen, there are so many more dimensions and so much complexity in the world that's really beautiful and impossible to replicate.

So we have to be mindful as we embrace the technology, we don't lose that connection. You gave the example of walking through the woods or through the neighborhood.

The walk through the woods is, yeah, that's objectively a good thing. And part of it is from the moving your body piece, right? But it's also these psychological needs. I think you're exactly right when you say if we think about them and recognize how important they are and see how they're being impacted by the technology, then we can hopefully choose when we want the technology helping us and when it's actually detrimental.

Now, the other thing that I think is also essential for us in the organizational context to keep in mind is connection. We often think connection just comes from bringing people together. So from your research and your thoughts on space, what creates real connection?

That's exactly right. You can't just throw a bunch of people on the same space and hope that it works, right? And you like we talked a little bit before about the negotiation example. So it's like this is the exact same space and the same groups of people, but it works differently for them because some people see it as like their home space, right? This is in sports. Anyone who watches sports, it's like, where's the game being played? Well, that team has an advantage, right? And so thinking about that, and if you're interviewing somebody in your office, they're gonna perform differently than if you're interviewing them in a neutral site or interviewing them in their office, right? The space just plays a huge role in it. And then also, what messages is the space sending? And is it distracting, right? So, like a messy space or a space that puts a high cognitive load on people. If people are in your space and they're trying to interpret what the space is doing or trying to figure the space out or don't understand how to navigate through your office, then they're gonna be more overwhelmed when they do end up meeting with you, right? So it's like cleaning up, like our grandmothers told us, but more about cleaning up the cognitive load that people are going to face when navigating your space. And you could think about things like you're gonna give them a tour before we sit down to have the important conversation so that you can kind of help separate those things. Or when I go into, like when I do my speaking, there's the green room. It seems like it's there's a huge function to it, right? Because now you can be in a space that is known to you. And then you come out onto the stage, which is a familiar environment, rather than being in this uncomfortable environment where there's a lot of stuff going on and taxing you before you have to get up and try to help these people by talking to them. So those are different strategies, right? One of them is go to the space early and immerse yourself. Another one is don't put yourself in this like overwhelming environment until it's time to perform so that you don't tax yourself. But I think those are always the thinking about how the space works is so much more than just smashing people together in it. And not to mention the fact that a lot of people are introverts, right? And they don't, they want to be able to choose their interactions, not just have them foisted upon them. I think the smashing, this is a little bit of me being on my soapbox, but I the smashing of people together is so funny. It's like this, it seems like there's a lot of like after-the-fact justification for that, right? It's like, oh, this amazing idea came because met at the water cooler, and they never would have met if the boss hadn't designed the office this way. It's like maybe they would have, and maybe they would have met somebody else, and it would have been a better design. It's a way for somebody who didn't actually contribute to try and take credit.

The proverbial water cooler where all the brilliant ideas come up with. I wonder, Idie, you've researched it, you've thought about it, you've written on this. So if you were giving some advice on how we can make the spaces where we live contribute to us thriving, what would be some examples or things we need to think about?

Yeah, it's really gonna be the same for living, working, and playing generically, and then I can give you some specific things for each. But it's really easy to focus on the square footage, right? Or the neighborhood or the number of bedrooms or the style of countertop, right? And maybe those are secondary considerations, but first we should think about we'll have agency. What will the connections be, right? And so connection in choosing where you live is like what neighborhood is it in, right? And what kind of front porch does it have if it's important for you to see your neighbors go by? And it's not that you're not going to consider those other factors, but we need to look at these big ones first. And so often we don't even think about them in the first place. And then what I'd like to say with working is even if you feel really constrained in your space, I think you can use that as a trigger to think, okay, what's happening here? I'm frustrated because my agency is being taken away, right? I have to come back to the office and I have to be in this cubicle. Where can I exercise some agency now? Okay, I have to be here. I have to do this. Can I do a walking meeting? Can I be the one who gets to the office, the meeting room first and set up the meeting room to exercise some agency in the space that way? Then you're meeting that psychological need and making yourself feel better in that way, even though you're constrained in important ways, but you don't feel as powerless once you respond to it.

Outstanding. Now it's almost five years later, Lighty. I can specifically mention the ways in which Subtract has impacted me, my clients, my audience, people I interact with. Five years from now, hopefully we will talk sooner than that. But five years from now, you run into someone or you run into people that say, you know what in a good place really impacted me and impacted us. What would you hope for that conversation to be like? In what ways will in a good place have impacted them?

That's a beautiful question. Thank you for asking the question because Subtract was such an easy book to explain, because, like you said, the idea is simple and then the implications, and once you get into the idea, it's complicated. But this one's a little different where it's like the idea is a little more complicated or bigger. But I think there's an easy five-year example, which is I want people to feel like, wow, I feel so much more empowered to deal with my environment. Right. Before I read this book, I just thought it was something that happened to me. And now not only am I like tuned into these psychological needs, but because I'm tuned into the psychological needs, I realize that these are things I can actually do something about. I don't need to be an architect. I don't need to be the boss who's deciding how to design the building. So that empowerment would be the biggest takeaway I'd hope people would get.

What the book did for me was to raise the significance of the impact the environment has on us, which I really appreciate. You first need to recognize that before then having the agency to make a difference on it as well. So for the audience Lighty to find this book, follow your writing and work, where would you send them to?

Okay. LightyClots.com is my website, and that kind of has what I'm up to, but all the good stuff is in the books, and you can buy those wherever books are sold, Amazon, or buy it through your local bookstore. And yeah, that's it.

I so appreciate the conversation, your previous book subtract, and your newest in a good place, how the spaces where we live, work and play can help us thrive. Thank you so much for the conversation, Lady Klutz.

Thanks, Maehan. And it's really a privilege to be able to talk to you. You've pushed my own thinking through our conversations, and it means the world that the ideas are useful to you and the people you work with. So thanks.

You have been listening to Partnering Leadership with your host, Mahan Tavakoli. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review of the podcast on your favorite podcasting app and forward the conversation to a friend or colleague so you can help more people discover their purpose, grow professionally with meaning, and have a greater impact. For additional leadership insights and bonus content, visit us at partneringleadership.com.