On Addition by Subtraction (Again)

When you intentionally put your thoughts into writing every week, and you’ve been at it for over a decade, you end up recycling ideas that you’ve raised before.

Occasionally, you think you’ve come up with something novel, only to realize that you already covered it before, and you now have a dilemma.

Of course, there are always new ways to spin something and give it a new flavour, so I normally just press on because something compelled me to “go there”, even if “there” is some place I’ve already ventured.

So, we’re returning to the area of addition by subtraction, again.

See Addition by Subtraction in the Family Business from 2024.

Part of why I felt the need to write about this expression again stems from the fact that I really like to use the “addition by subtraction” phrase.

I’m not sure if it’s because it’s only three words or because of the ironic juxtaposition of the two main words, but it’s become something that rolls off my tongue any time a situation even bears a hint of making more with less.

But because my normal professional playground typically involves people who are related to one another, anytime such a situation even suggests itself, I actually hate the expression.

Whenever the idea of removing a family member is even a consideration for making things better arises, it feels like a failure of some sort.

As someone who is not part of the families that I serve, my perspective needs to be different, though.

For the members of the family, even a hint at the idea of getting a family member “out” feels like a no-go zone.

It’s so much easier to ignore the problem and just hope that it’ll resolve itself by some miracle.

Alas, hoping for a miracle is not a strategy, as you’ve surely already heard.

A while back, a longtime friend of mine who works in another field but also has some family business clients was telling me about a particular local FamBiz that he serves.

Not that I asked, but he shared that several siblings were in the process of taking over the business from their father.

He then added that one brother was not involved in this because

That line has stuck with me, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was said with a certain bluntness that makes it memorable.

I also don’t know if that phrasing is my friend’s interpretation or if that’s how the family members framed it when they told him.

When I think about families I know where members tried to stick together for the sake of sticking together, I have several examples where they hung on too long.

I even have one where the lawyers are about to be brought in and I may end up eventually being deposed.

Any family that manages to sustain some sort of enterprise over several generations must do some “pruning” along the way, otherwise things simply become too unwieldy.

See Pruning the FamBiz Ownership Tree.

I just unwittingly brought us back to the three circles by mentioning ownership.

See Three Circles + Seven Sectors = One A-Ha Moment (from 2013!).

Families need to decide who can and will own the business, as well as who can and will work in it.

But family remains family no matter what, right?

The threshold for being kicked out of the family is certainly higher than the other two.

At a recent FamBiz conference I attended a session addressing exactly, this subject, i.e. yes, you can fire a family member, from the business, but not from the family.

As I ponder situations I’ve been involved with, I realize that when we enter, we see things a certain way and conclude that someone may seem irredeemable.

I’m in one right now where ideas about how to extricate a family member from the business were top of mind when we started, but now things have changed.

The family, left to themselves, would probably have given up and fired them by now.

But with some intention and effort, we were able to find the right role where they could thrive and add value to the business, for a true win-win.