Change management: what could we remove instead of adding?
A change project is often presented as a list of arrangements to introduce. The more precise management question is this: before adding a new requirement, have we genuinely examined what could disappear from existing work?
What the literature establishes
Gabrielle S. Adams, Benjamin A. Converse, Andrew H. Hales and Leidy E. Klotz (2021, Nature) show across a series of experiments that people frequently overlook subtractive changes when seeking to improve something. Their findings indicate that additive solutions come to mind more readily, while an explicit prompt to consider removal encourages exploration of subtractive options. This does not mean that removing something is always preferable, but that the option may go unexamined.
The pull of what already exists
William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser (1988, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty) document status quo bias: presenting an option as the existing situation can favour its retention. This mechanism is distinct from the tendency to overlook subtractive solutions. Together, these studies suggest two questions: which removals have we failed to consider, and which arrangements are we retaining mainly because they are already there?
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that well-managed change must necessarily simplify the organisation. The studies cited justify neither this general rule nor an indiscriminate removal target. A check, an approval or a documentary record may protect safety and service continuity, even when its usefulness is not readily apparent in everyday work. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot promise
Experimental tasks involving subtraction do not reproduce the interdependencies of a hospital, a wine-growing business or an energy operator. Nor does research on status quo bias constitute a trial of organisational simplification. These studies support careful scrutiny when designing change, not a promise of productivity gains: removing a step can also shift its work to another team.
A practical check in Sion
As part of SHR’s change management programme, an exercise applicable in Sion would be to examine an administrative step associated with a project in hydropower, healthcare, wine-growing or Alpine tourism, then check its function and the applicable obligations before removing it. Over a predefined period, the team could test removing a duplicate step with no regulatory or safety function, while keeping the option to reinstate it. The main measure would be total processing time per case across all departments involved, compared with a baseline period covering comparable cases; rework and incidents would also be recorded. Removal would be retained only if the gain depended neither on an unrecorded transfer of workload nor on a deterioration in quality. To go further: explore the Change Leadership training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Change Leadership in Sion
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