Necessary Endings

both businesses and individuals will begin, gather, and have more activities than they can reasonably sustain.

more than a few leaders also told me that they were grateful the crisis gave them the excuse to remove staff members who stood in the way and kept the company from going where it needed to go. Again the question is, “Why were those people still there?”

Welch used four standards to make pruning decisions. Under his leadership, GE grew from $26 billion in revenues to $130 billion and from around $14 billion in market value to over $410 billion, making it the most valuable company in the world at the time. Here are the four standards Welch used to answer the question What are we pruning toward? 1. I

Pruning is a process of proactive endings.

In many contexts, until we let go of what is not good, we will never find something that is good. The lesson: good cannot begin until bad ends.

The leadership growth question then became, “Why didn’t you?” Figure that out and you won’t wait next time.

dictionary search on pruning and you’ll discover phrases like this: A function of cutting away to reduce the extent or reach of something by taking away unwanted or superfluous parts. Wow, if only we would lead and live by definitions! In the simple word pruning is the central theme of what a necessary ending is all about: Removing whatever it is i

Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them.