Where change is happening, we often hear that if we are wanting to do something differently, the change must involves giving something up, or stopping some unproductive behavior. In Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud refers to this as pruning. And we all need to do it – at work and in life.
“You can’t prune toward anything if you don’t know what you want. You have to figure out what you are trying to be or build and then define what the pruning standards are going to be. That definition and those standards will bring you to the pruning moments, wherein your either own the vision or you don’t.” (p. 28)
What are the things we need to prune in our educational institutions? What makes it difficult for us to prune in education? Is our lack of pruning a reason why education is in the state it is in?
I particularly like Cloud’s suggestions for pruning meetings:
- What ways are we spending time in these meetings that are good and helpful but not the best use of our time together?
- What do we do here that is sick and not getting well?
- What is dead and just taking up space?
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