Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

by Henry Cloud

Whether we like it or not, endings are a part of life. They are woven into the fabric of life itself, both when it goes well, and also when it doesn’t. On the good side of life, for us to ever get to a new level, a new tomorrow, or the next step, something has to end. Life has seasons, stages, and phases. For there to be anything new, old things always have to end, and we have to let go of them.

Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them.

In many contexts, until we let go of what is not good, we will never find something that is good. The lesson: good cannot begin until bad ends.

(1) If an initiative is siphoning off resources that could go to something with more promise, it is pruned. (2) If an endeavor is sick and is not going to get well, it is pruned. (3) If it’s clear that something is already dead, it is pruned. This is the threefold formula for doing well in almost every arena of life.

What is your intellectual response to the idea of pruning?

What is your emotional response to the idea of pruning?

When we talk about necessary endings, it’s one thing to understand the theory behind the three reasons for pruning—good but not best, sick but not getting well, and long since dead—but it’s another thing entirely to apply those concepts in real life. We can’t execute endings in theory only, so they have to be clear in reality. The question is, What defines reality?

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 you either own the vision or you don’t.

Make the endings a normal occurrence and a normal part of business and life, instead of seeing it as a problem.

If a situation falls within the range of normal, expected, and known, the human brain automatically marshals all available resources and moves to engage it. But if the brain interprets the situation as negative, dangerous, wrong, or unknown, a fight-or-flight response kicks in that moves us away from the issue or begins to resist it.

Put into the context of endings, if you see them as normal, expected, and even a good thing, you will embrace them and take action to execute them. You will see them as a painful gift. But if you see an ending as meaning “something is wrong if this has to happen,” you will resist them or fight them long past when they should be fought. Endings have to be perceived as a normal part of work and life.

Let’s look at three organizing principles that will help you make endings both necessary and normal: first, accept life cycles and seasons; second, accept that life produces too much life, and third, accept that incurable illness and sometimes evil are part of life too. Taken together, these three principles will help you to make peace with endings, so that when their time has come, you will be able to do what you need to do.

But there is another kind of pain, one that should not be embraced, one that you want to do everything in your power to end. The pain I am referring to here is misery that goes nowhere. That is not normal, and when it happens, it is time to wake up. It is time to realize that anytime pain is going nowhere fast, a few things must be occurring.

Failing well means ending something that is not working and choosing to do something else better.

Psychology researchers Charles Carver and Mark Scheier make the distinction between “giving up effort” and “giving up commitment.” They point out how important it is to realize that giving up on some particular commitment doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up on effort. Instead, that effort can be redirected to another goal worthy of your resources.

There is a difference between helping someone who is disabled, incapable, or otherwise infirm versus helping someone who is resisting growing up and taking care of what every adult (or child, for that matter) has to be responsible for: herself or himself. When you find yourself in any way paying for someone else’s responsibilities, not only are you stuck with a delayed ending, but you are probably harming that person.

If you are looking for the formula that can get you motivated and fearless, here it is: you must finally see reality for what it is—in other words, that what is not working is not going to magically begin working. If something isn’t working, you must admit that what you are doing to get it to work is hopeless.

The awareness of hopelessness is what finally brings people to the reality of the pruning moment. It is the moment when they wake up, realize that an ending must occur, and finally feel energized to do it. Nothing mobilizes us like a firm dose of reality.

You realize that to get where you want to get, you must make a change. You really get it that to continue to do what you are doing is hopeless, and then you will begin to see motivation to make a change appear. So hopelessness can bring us closer to fearlessness, as it does not take courage to stop doing what you know is not going to work.

In the absence of real, objective reasons to think that more time is going to help, it is probably time for some type of necessary ending.

“Hope is not a strategy.”

What has happened so far in this situation? What you have experienced in this situation is plenty to learn from.

The best predictor of the future, without other variables, is the past.

But the key is this: There had better be good reason to believe that someone is going to do better.

What has the performance been so far? • Is it good enough? • Is there anything in place that would make it different? • If not, am I willing to sign up for more of the same?

When you consider the past and come to grips with the fact that it is hopeless to expect something different in the future, then you have the kind of hopelessness that will motivate you to move from mere wishing to real hope.

Do I want this same reality, frustration, or problem six months from now? • Do I want this same level of performance a year from now? • Do I want to be having these same conversations two years from now?

• What reason is there to have hope that tomorrow is going to be different? • What in the picture is changing that I can believe in?

We wrongly put our hope in some promise, belief, or wish that the person expresses, but ignore the clear reality of who they actually are.

Recommitment does not make a person who is unsuited for a particular position suited for it all of a sudden. Promises by someone who has a history of letting you down in a relationship mean nothing certain in terms of the future.

It is often irrational to listen to a seemingly good idea from a proven nonperformer.

Verifiable Involvement in a Proven Change Process

Is the person in some sort of change process that you can verify a sustained commitment to?

By and large, people do not change without new structure. The change process must not be left up to the person’s own schedule and internal controls. The process must include a structured path, i.e., set-in-stone times and practices that do not depend on the person’s own whims, regular meetings with a coach, mentor, support group, trainer, or seminar.

Monitoring Systems How do we know this is all happening? Because we are watching it and measuring it.

People change not only because of new information, but also by gaining new experiences that teach them what they need in order to make the future different.

Self-sustaining Motivation How do you know when to have hope for the future of someone’s changes? Look at the degree to which you are having to drive the process. That is one of the strongest indicators of what is going to happen.

Admission of Need To have hope that people are truly going to change, you must have an admission from them that they really need to change. They must see that they have a problem and own the problem.

Similarly, they must see that they have a need for help and that they cannot trust their own efforts to make anything different.

The Presence of Support In a change process, support is essential. Change takes place when we are surrounded by people who support our desire for change and growth, whether in our personal or our professional lives.

Skilled Help Usually, for there to be real hope for the future, there must be someone in the circle of help who knows what he is doing.

Some Success Change takes time. One of the most common comments I hear from those who are invested in someone’s changing is “I hope this happens fast.” In some situations, we can expect enormous change in a short time with specific interventions.

Necessary endings should come when there is real hopelessness, a real reason to think that something is in need of pruning. As we saw earlier, it is one of the best places that you can get to, because it will fuel change.

The time when you get to hopelessness can be one of the best moments for your future. To give up hope that something is going to change when it is not going to gets you unstuck immediately and brings energy. It brings life to the sickness of hope deferred.

Not all take responsibility for themselves or care about how their actions are affecting other people or the mission. Moreover, some are even worse than that. Some people are actually out to do you harm.

When truth presents itself, the wise person sees the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments.

But for now, understand that this diagnostic is about one thing and one thing only: a person’s ability to take feedback and make the adjustment. With people who can respond to feedback, given that they have the gifts and abilities that you need in your context, there is always hope. The mature person meets the demands of life, while the immature person demands that life meet her demands. You can see how wisdom plays into maturity, as the wise person would take in the truth and adjust herself to meet whatever change truth is demanding of her.

Traits of Wise Persons Here are some traits of the wise: • When you give them feedback, they listen, take it in, and adjust their behavior accordingly. • When you give them feedback, they embrace it positively.

They own their performance, problems, and issues and take responsibility for them without excuses or blame. • Your relationship is strengthened as a result of giving them feedback.

They empathize and express concern about the results of their behavior on others.