One of my favourite quotes comes from Derek Sivers:

“If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

When looking at Dr Simon Breakspear’s ‘The Pruning Principle – Unlocking educational progress by mastering the art of strategic subtraction,’ I feel as though there is a chasm between the insightful information he shares, and the ability to use that information meaningfully and effectively in schools. Simon summed this up at the BC Principals and Vice Principals Association conference in Whistler yesterday when he said, “Subtraction is harder than it looks!”

So, let’s examine this Pruning Principle a little closer and leap over the chasm between this insightful concept and it’s usefulness.

The premise:

In gardening pruning, cutting back, is essential to cultivating long-term vitality. That said, it’s important to recognize that pruning almost never involves removing something completely.

The challenge:

The ideas of ‘doing less’ or ‘de-implementation’ have negative connotations. ‘Pruning’ is a better, more positive frame. The challenge is to recognize that sometimes we have to stop doing many good things to spend time doing fewer better things.

“There is nothing so useless as doing effectively that which should not be done at all.” ~ Peter Drucker

The plan:

1. Examine (Review the landscape.)
2. Remove (Subtract with care.)
3. Nurture (Cultivate what matters.)

With a focus on ‘impact’, intentionally remove things we do that are not as impactful or effective as we think, in order to nurture and give more time to the truly impactful things.

This is an iterative process. The pruning need not, and probably should not, be big/irreversible/long-term/complex-structure. Instead start small/reversible/short-cycle/short-term.

The targets:

Areas to target for pruning:

• Time
• Priorities
• Physical and visual space
• People/participants involved
• Commitments and responsibilities
• Processes or steps in a process
• Platforms and schools
• Rules and policies
• Standards and frameworks

The goals:

1. Redirect finite energy and resources
2. Stimulate desired new growth
3. Reshape for health and longevity

The questions:

What is on my ‘Stop Doing’ list?

What can I Delay, Delegate, or Dump?

How do I shift my internal dialogue from pruning being a negative, a subtraction, to being one where pruning is about caring and greater competence?

The example:

Pruning is a great metaphor, it takes the subtraction of things to help nurture them and have them blossom or bloom. But my favourite example from Simon Breakspear was about learning to ride a bicycle. One of the biggest challenges in learning to ride is balance. A kid’s bike comes with training wheels. While the wheels prevent falling over, they are a crutch that doesn’t actually help with balance. Now, we see little bikes with no pedals, and no training wheels. Kids are learning to balance before learning to pedal… and they are learning to ride both younger and faster! Instead of adding training wheels, we subtracted the pedals and made the learning journey better.

The first steps:

Choose a target area and start small. Do small experiments. Focus on the improvements you want while remembering that you are already at capacity. You aren’t going to effectively add more, or do better, unless you prune somewhere else.

We can flourish (blossom) when we focus time and resources on things that have impact. By pruning distractions and low-impact efforts, we and our teams can redirect energy towards what truly matters… enhancing both performance and wellbeing.