One my mentors in the past used code words with me. He could say one word, and it would unroll a complex idea or question.
For example, he would ask me periodically, “Pruning?” which I knew expanded to “How goes the pruning process, so that you’re only working on the fruit-bearing work that matters most?
Want more tomatoes, apples, roses? You have to prune. At first it seems shockingly harsh. Pinch off the suckers. Apples are only produced on new growth, so a pruned apple orchard looks like a hacked-off collection of stumpy, thick branches. Cut back the rosebushes to a fraction of their size. I remember watching my grandfather cut back the roses near their farmhouse in Lumberport, West Virginia. He saw my expression and said, “If you ask the roses, they don’t like to be pruned.”
If you don’t prune you might still have lots of leaves and branches, but you’ll have less of the valuable fruit. Pruning focuses the energy of the plant on fruit-bearing stems and branches.
What’s in your workflow now which could be pruned? What work creates pretty leaves and no lasting fruit? What is the biggest and best fruit you should be producing? What about the work done by your team, your organization? If you’re having difficulty imagining what could be pruned, begin with this question: “What does my customer – the person who writes the check – value?”
Note: Pruning is different than delegating work to someone else. Don’t delegate non-value-add work to others just to get it off your list.
