Importance of having clear goals for your organization and yourself
At this very moment, you have people, projects, or tasks you need to eliminate from your life. Maybe youve been dealing with a troubling employee situation for months, or even years, and despite your best efforts you dont see any hope for improvement. Or maybe its a project that got off track months ago, but no one, particularly you, wants to admit its a failure and a new strategy is needed. Perhaps its a particular task or process youve maintained for years because thats the way its always been done, but you have an inkling that if you stopped doing it tomorrow, no one would notice or care.
If this resonates with you, then its time for some pruning.. The core definition of pruning is to remove anything considered superfluous or undesirable. As Dr. Henry Cloud points out in his book, Necessary Endings, the areas of business and life that require your limited resourcesyour time, energy, talent, emotions, moneybut arent achieving the vision you have for them, should be regularly pruned in order to reach their full potential.
Consider the cultivation of a prized rosebush to understand the purpose of pruning. The gardener removes branches or buds that fall into any of three categories:
Healthy buds or branches that are not the best ones,
Sick branches that are not going to get well, and
Dead branches that are taking up space needed for the healthy ones to thrive.
These three categories of pruning apply to the types of people, projects, and tasks you are dealing with right now.
Type 1 The Good Detracting from the Great
The rosebush produces more growth than the plant can optimally sustain. The plant has only so much life and energy to power its development, so the gardener trims what may be healthy, yet average blooms, so the plant can direct its resources to the best producing roses. The good roses, if left alone, will suck life away from the great roses. The result? A rosebush with average blooms performing below its potential.
What people, projects, or tasks are you involved with that, although good in and of themselves, are taking time and resources away from achieving greatness with your team or organization? There is no shortage of things demanding your attention, so the key is to prune your priorities down to the most essential ones that fuel the majority of your success.
Type 2 The Sick That Cant be Cured
Some branches in a rosebush become diseased and have to be removed to protect the health of the entire plant. When the caretaker notices a sick branch, he will spend some time trying to nurse it back to health. At some point in time the caretaker will reach a decision to prune the branch because he realizes that no amount of water, fertilizer, or care is going to heal the branch. Sick branches take energy from the rosebush, and pruning these sick branches allows the bush to direct more energy to the healthy ones.
You have people, projects, and tasks that are diseased and need to be removed. You have fertilized them, watered them, nurtured them, and done everything in your power to help cure them. For whatever reason, they arent getting better and theyre only taking time and energy away from the healthy things you need to focus on. This can be one of the toughest decisions a leader has to face. It might mean confronting the difficult truth that a key company initiative isnt working as intended, or a long-term employee isnt able to improve his performance to meet the needs of the organization. On the plus side, it is liberating to admit things arent working and changes need to be made because it frees up time, energy, and resources to focus on areas of new growth.
Type 3 The Dead Preventing Growth of the Living
The third type of pruning is removing dead branches in order to make more room for the living branches to grow. If the dead branches arent removed, the path of the living branches will be obstructed and limited. The living branches need room to spread in order to reach their full potential and the dead branches impede that growth.
You have dead branches in your business and personal life that need to be removed if you want to reach your full potential. It might be misguided organizational strategies that served your company well ten years ago but are no longer relevant. Or maybe its processes, systems, or meetings you engage in but dont add any value to the purpose youre trying to achieve. If its dead and just taking up space, get rid of it. Its time to cut that branch.
Prune with a Purpose
The gardener doesnt prune willy-nilly, just clipping branches and blooms here and there without discretion. The gardener has a purpose. He knows what a healthy rosebush should look like and he prunes toward that standard. It illustrates the importance of having clear goals and expectations for your organization, your people, and yourself. Without clear goals and standards, you dont have an objective measure by which to prune and you handicap yourself from reaching your full potential.
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