Pruning is good for the health of a tree, a person, and a company. Normally, winter is pruning season. This is when a tree is clear of leaves and fruit making it the perfect time to shape its future. Let’s take a look at how this pandemic season offers a second chance to remove dead wood from our lives, careers, and companies.
A Fresh View
When you’re caught in a crisis, you begin to see things differently. Circumstances open your eyes to opportunities you previously overlooked or simply grown numb to. This new view, by necessity, reorganizes your priorities.
Pruning Decisions
When I prune a tree, I use a two-step approach. First, I cut off any dead wood. Dead wood causes damage to trees because it attracts pests and brings disease and destruction. It hurts to lose a limb, but the decision is made for the obvious benefit of the tree.
Steven Covey teaches this type of decision is both urgent and important. It becomes increasingly obvious that your decision is not optional. Compare this kind of decision with choices you had to make when you were faced with Coronavirus regulations.
My second pruning step is to step back and get an unobstructed view of the tree. This view provides a better perspective for any further pruning decisions. I take time to study and evaluate which other weak branches to remove so I can assure the tree has as healthy and strong future.
After three months of this pandemic, you may be in a place to take a second unobstructed look and make some important, but not urgent decisions. This type of decision is less reactive and allows you time to make needed changes to produce positive long-term results.
Is it time to take another look and resume a more controlled pruning for a stronger future? Is this the time to remove your rotten wood and weak branches? These may include certain people, unproductive departments, and many “the-way-we’ve-always-done-it” habits?
Regardless of how pruning happens in your company or your life, it requires you to make the decision and follow up with a commitment. Pruning is a permanent decision.
Pruning Calls for Action
When I find myself headed to the garden with my favorite tree saw and my 30-in. Corona (not the virus) pruning shears, two dozen 100-foot tall trees fear and tremble. Or, do they look forward to it? Odds are I won’t head back to the shed without cutting something.
For many years, we knew we should create and deliver online training here at NCI. However, we were so focused on face-to-face training events that we had little time to focus on online training. So, we made some token efforts and poked at it, but left it on the back burner.
Then, without warning, NCI's face-to-face training became an illegal activity overnight. We envisioned the pruner and his 30-in. chainsaw headed our way with his eye on our trunk.
Fortunately, unlike a tree, we knew we could make immediate changes before the pruner arrived. During the last two weeks of March, each department within our company drank the fertilizer as we offered a new style of training, built a studio, and converted our best training to a new format. We launched live, online training and preserved our trunk while we grew new branches. As a result, the fruit was incredibly good.
Pruning, or the threat of pruning, is a call to action. This is a fleeting season that offers a unique view of your future.
In April and May, we substantially exceeded our typical number of HVAC professionals we typically train and recertify. In a company meeting, our CEO Dominick Guarino said, “To accomplish our successful shift to online training, every one of us at NCI has willingly stepped out of our comfort zone and done what was needed, so we could continue to serve the industry.”
We avoided pruning and grew a thriving new branch from which additional branches can spring and bear fruit.
Pruning, or the threat of pruning, is a call to action. This is a fleeting season that offers a unique view of your future. It will evaporate as life returns to normal and you get comfortable. You have a unique opportunity to decide what you must prune, or what you must do to avoid being pruned.
Resistance, Obstacles, Opposition?
Count on all three. When you address needed changes, two opposing forces are at work in a company culture or an individual.
Progressive companies thrive on moving forward and use it to drive improvement and change. Part of that culture allows for a constructive level of resistance and opposition so team members can arrive at the best decisions together.
You’ll hear the cry, “That will never work!” as others seek to maintain the current level of normal at all costs.
Other companies or people stifle innovation and resist change. Even when it’s desperately needed. This culture fights change, especially the permanent change of pruning. You’ll hear the cry, “That will never work!” as others seek to maintain the current level of normal at all costs. Should you sense this culture, count on opposition as you bring out the pruning shears. Prepare for a test of your commitment.
Our current pruning season will soon pass, and its opportunities will slip away. This may mean you need to make an immediate decision to act today. Your circumstances may demand that you fire-up the chainsaw or only sharpen your shears.
Rob “Doc” Falke serves the industry as president of National Comfort Institute, Inc., an HVAC-based training company and membership organization. You can contact Doc at [email protected] or call him at 800-633-7058. Go to NCI’s website at nationalcomfortinstitute.com for free information, articles, and downloads.