The importance of pruning roses.

One of my co-workers used the analogy of pruning roses too describe the importance of stopping initiatives, even ones that might seem to be succeeding, if in doing so we would make either the plant healthier or encourage proliferation of new growth.

When I was teaching creative writing, Kill Your Babies / Kill Your Darlings was my favorite unit. Assertive and at times aggressive editing is one of the shortest paths to improving your writing. The resistance to deleting words you’ve worked hard to write seems perfectly Freudian and related to a fear what if the faucet won’t turn on tomorrow, what if I can’t write words this well again. At the org level, we see similar hesitation to kill projects and initiatives that have an acquired momentum.