Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

making decisions

Get Out Your Pruning Shears – It’s Time To Cut

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It takes guts to be a gardener.

Pruning, I have learned through trial and error, is not for the faint of heart.

You’ve got to be resolute, and determined. You’ve got to want to do it.

Sometimes the prospect of pruning a horribly overgrown plant is so daunting you wonder how to even get started.

First, it helps to have an understanding of what’s happening – is the bush healthy or sick? Overgrown? Producing fewer fruits or flowers? Next, get clear on your vision – how should the plant look? What does it need to be healthy? Then, you have to have determination to start cutting – and to cut quickly – and get rid of the straggly branches and overburdened boughs.

Sometimes after a particularly hard pruning I’ll look at the resulting stubby little bush and think “That’s it, I’ve done it. I just killed the thing.”

And yet those are the same plants which look absolutely fantastic a year later.

So, I have learned to prune and prune hard as an investment in the future.

[Here comes the analogy – you were waiting for it, weren’t you?]

Last week I was working with a client on managing a particularly difficult relationship at work. I listened as he told me all about this other guy’s lack of performance, and how he got on everyone’s nerves, and how badly he affected team morale.

I said, “Why don’t you just fire him?”

My client, who is the CEO, says, “Well, we’re all kind of hoping he just quits.”

Because, boy, wouldn’t that be easier! So much easier than taking the pruning shears in hand and making that decisive cut.

(BTW, if I had a dollar for every time someone mentioned waiting for an under-performing employee to quit, I’d be rich enough to join Gates and Buffet and give away my fortune.)

I’m telling you, pruning of any kind is not for the faint of heart. And it’s fraught with worry – maybe you’ll do it wrong, or maybe you’ll cut off a blooming branch, or kill the plant.

But if you don’t do it – quickly and decisively – you run the risk of creating an overgrown, weak and spindly plant. Which is even more susceptible to breakage, disease, loss and even death.

Sometimes office-type pruning starts with having that difficult conversation, calling someone out on their destructive, negative behavior. If you’re the boss, you’ve got to use your figurative pruning shears and snip, snip as you talk. Tell the person what’s not working, how they can make it work better, and the consequences if they don’t.

We don’t train enough people to do this well, but it sure needs to be done more often.

And, if there’s someone who needs to go, let them go. Immediately. Be kind with a severance package if you want, sure – I’m all for it. But be firm and determined, too.

Snip, snip – you’ve got a healthier office. Snip, snip – more efficiency and productivity. Snip, snip –  a less stressed you.

I’m guessing, because you’re human and this stuff is hard, that there are probably other places in your life besides the office that need a little pruning. A relationship which no longer bears fruit? A habit in need of shaping up? Clutter to cut back?

Approach these situations with the same vim and vigor, the same focus and intention – get the vision of what you’d like it to be like, focus on maintaining the health of the whole – and start snip, snip, snipping.

It may look a mess in the moment, but a year from now you will be amazed at how astoundingly gorgeous your world has become – and how brave you really were to put on your garden gloves and start pruning.

 

Either, Or & And

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He looks at me across the table, eyes steady, gaze clear. “Here’s the deal,” he begins. “I hate my job – really hate it. There is no place for me to move up, it’s the same crap every day, and the people I work with are toxic.” He stops for a breath. “But I make a great six-figure income and we have a good lifestyle.

“It feels like I can’t leave the money, but I can’t stay in this job much longer.” Now, his resolve falters. “What can I do?”

Well, the first thing he can do is stop with the either/or thinking.

Thinking like: Either I do work I hate to make money I like, or I do work I like and go broke.

Notice how there’s no possible happy outcome in his mind. And I’ll tell you what – he’s not alone in that thinking.

She tells me that she loves being a full-time parent, and feels complete when she’s mothering her children. There’s just this one thing – she’s not so sure if she’s happy in her marriage. She tells me:

“Either I fulfill myself as a mother and stay in a blah marriage, or I get divorced and become a single working mom who never sees her children. I just can’t do that to my kids.”

Again with the either/or.

What you need to know about either/or set-ups is this: they allow us to justify not making any choices at all. We neatly set it up so every alternative is a crappy one – allowing us to avoid the uncertainty of change, and maintain the status quo.  Then, slowly, slowly, slowly, because of our fears, we lose our passion, our joy and our selves.

Which is really sad.

Especially since there is another way.

You knew I’d have another way.

I call it “The And Way”.

The And Way says, “I can be happy in my work AND earn a healthy living.”

It says, “I can be the kind of involved parent I want to be AND have a satisfying marriage.”

It’s “I can eat what I want AND maintain a healthy body.”

I love The And Way. And you will, too.

How do you start living The And Way?

Simple.

When you hear yourself doing the either/or thing, hold up a minute. Ask yourself this: Is that true? Of course, it may feel absolutely, 100% true. But explore. Is it really? Do you know anyone who does work they love and makes all the money they want?

Come on, you know someone who does.

You know me, don’t you? 🙂

When it comes down to it, you almost always know someone who’s doing what you tell yourself is impossible. And as long as you keep this person in mind, you see that there is an And Way.

Then you just have to pursue it. Sure, you may have to adjust a few things in your life. But you just might find that adjustment liberating.

Fear of change is the most human of emotions. But it’s also the most limiting of emotions. It keeps us stuck.

Knowing that positive change is possible – that there is always, always, always The And Way – is your first step toward crafting a fulfilling and happy life.

Lessons From Lifeguarding

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When I was about thirteen or fourteen I thought being a lifeguard was probably the coolest job on earth.

  1. They had deep, dark, Bain de Soleil St. Tropez tans;
  2. They looked awesome in bathing suits;
  3. They were totally in charge;
  4. They appeared not to do any work whatsoever;
  5. They made a staggering $5 per hour; and,
  6. They could twirl their whistle by the lanyard, around and around their fingers, quite effortlessly (and slightly hypnotically).

Intoxicating combo of cool.  I decided to become a lifeguard.

Bad news, though – you had to be sixteen.  So I signed up for Junior Lifeguard Training. 

Now, I figured my sixth grade stint as a safety patrol put me in a pretty good position to be a lifeguard – no walker had been hit by a car on my watch, although when Valerie Perry decided to rollerskate to school she nearly got mowed down by a frazzled mom in a big, old, honking Chevy station wagon.  I, of course, saved Valerie’s life by grabbing her hand at the very last minute and pulling her to safety. [OK, my account may be a little over-dramaticized, but that’s the story we breathlessly told upon arriving at school.  Drama is to pre-teens as air is to breathing, as you very well know.]

So you can understand why I was pretty cocky and full of myself as the Junior Lifeguard Training commenced.  I had already saved a life, had read the Red Cross book, and even read the Coast Guard manual – hey, you can never know too much – and figured I’d breeze through.

I was on my way to cool.

But I hadn’t counted on the test.

Because there’s always a test.

The Junior Lifeguard test included mock rescues and using your clothing as a flotation device and a written exam.

And treading water for twenty minutes.

Straight. In the deep end. Which meant there was going to be no way to get a little bit of a rest by touching the bottom for just a minute. Constant movement of the body, but total staying-in-one-place.

I think about it now – how in the world did I tread water for twenty minutes?  If my memory serves me, I employed simple scissor kicks and wide sweeping arms to keep my head above water.  I paced myself.  I relaxed.

And I passed.

This treading water memory came to mind this week as two clients shared their current situations.  He, after two years of treading water, has finally sold his business and is moving on to the next thing.  She’s at the decision point – does she close her struggling consulting practice? Sell it? Take a regular job with a paycheck? She’s surely treading water at the moment.

In his book Transitions, author William Bridges suggests that any transition starts off with an ending, moves into a kind of waiting which he calls “the neutral zone”, and then ends with a new beginning.

Treading water is what’s happening in the neutral zone, and it’s a critical phase that you can’t rush through and out of, try as you might. You’re in the deep end, and you can’t touch bottom.

And we all know, as the poet Tom Petty famously said, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

There’s not much to do while treading water but wait.

Or, is there?

I know that treading water gives you time to find the horizon.  It gives you a chance to scan the options.  It allows you to take stock and get clear before you start swimming. Swimming in the right direction.

If you find yourself treading water right now, you can stop beating yourself up for not going anywhere.

You don’t need to go anywhere other than where you are. Treading water is part of what you have to do to pass the test.

So wait a little bit. Learn what needs to be learned. Relax. Pace yourself. Hey, when you’re in the middle of it, it’ll feel like you’re churning forever – but when you’re done, you’ll see it’s only been twenty minutes.

You’re so going to pass this test.