It's early December. As I write this, a blustery northwest wind is blowing through Maine. Each gust shakes a few more of the remaining leaves off of the trees surrounding our home. The oak leaves, it seems, always stay on the longest. Even they are finally letting go today.
It's a good thing, really. Forecasters are predicting our first snow of the seasaon on Monday, a storm that will birng as much as a foot of snow. That's a lot for a first snow around here. We're going to have an abrupt transition from one season to the next.
As I watch all this going on outside the window of my study, I realize that we humans have a lesson to learn from the oak trees. Their "letting go" of this year's leaves is part of nature's preparation for the trees' growth next spring. So it ought to be for us, too.
Ask yourself, what are the things that you ought to let go of in order to prepare for your next stage of growth? What does your company need to let go of? What products, processes, or practices should your organization discontinue? What should you, personally, let go of to make room to grow?
I let go of a cherished sailboat this year to make room in my calendar and in my pocketbook to continue my graduate studies. I let go of a professional relationship to develop and advocate a new model of quality monitoring in the call center industry. And, in developing this new model, I have had to let go of several lof my own long-held views about the best way to do business in call centers.
Let me warn you that it can feel pretty naked to let go like this. But I know, thanks to our oak trees, that this is but one phase in continual growth. The onset of winter is but a harbinger of the coming spring.
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