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

We have a finite amount of energy, time and money available. What is spent on the wrong things cannot be spent on the right ones.Gardeners get this: They understand the need to remove diseased, overmature, or unwanted portions from the rose bush. They know that pruning encourages denser growth and more profuse flowering by concentrating the plant's energy on continued flower production.Part of the lifecycle of plants is the need for pruning. Part of the lifecycle of people and organizations is the need for pruning. Pruning applies to big issues like ending relationships with people and projects, and small ones like scrapping parts of the Monday morning meeting agenda that no longer add value. More important issues cannot be added to the time tight agenda unless other items are removed.Clouds’ book, Necessary Endings, is a guide to ending relationships that are no longer working, investments that are not performing, so we can use the finite amounts of time, energy and money that we have for what can work. To do that effectively we need to be clear what we are dealing with so we do not end what we should persevere with and not persevere with what we should end.A useful rule of thumb is his distinction between “hoping” and “wishing.” Hoping is when the expectation of an improvement in staff productivity or an investment returns is based on sound evidence or reasoning. In contrast, wishing is the baseless expectation of improvement of the situation.Jack Welch was a legendary pruner. He pruned any companies that were not number one or number two in their industries or on their way to becoming number one or number two. He instructed his managers to spoil the top 20% of their staff, take care for “solid” 70% and fire the bottom 10%. Both the business and the staff were stronger for this as evidenced by GE’s spectacular results during his twenty year tenure as Chairman and CEO.Cost cutting should not be confused with pruning. Pruning is strategic, cost cutting often results in fewer people required to do more with less, hardly a clever strategic move.Cloud, a clinical psychologist, explores the many emotional traps that prevent us from ending what is necessary. They range from the mistaken belief that “winners don’t quit and quitters don’t win” to the feeling that “we may be in hell, but at least we know every street.” Even when there is no longer any reason to believe that the project, employee, relationship or partnership will ever come right people decline to effect the necessary ending. This feels preferable to being labeled the “bad guy” by oneself or others.There are books for gardeners on how to prune the roses. Executed competently, you get great blooms and done purely or not at all, you will have ungainly, leggy growth with bare branches at the base. Necessary Endings is probably the business equivalent.The good times can not start until the bad times end.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High +---- Low Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy

This is a book about cutting your losses. The end results for others don't seem to matter. A business book for C-suite leaders, the women in this book are few and far between, and it's all about making decisions *for yourself* and not paying much attention to the fallout. The book's theme seems to be "stay hard, full speed ahead." If feelings don't matter then buy it.

FANTASTIC book!!!! If you struggle with ending friendships, jobs, etc when you know they have run their course, read this book!!!!! Everyone should have to read this so that we realize in life not all relationships are meant to continue forever. And in fact it's harmful to keep them going after they have run their course or have become damaging. This book is life changing!!!! I was not paid for this review - just my own humble opinion and I'm a happy customer!!

I WISH I HAD THIS BOOK 14 YEARS AGO!!! I own my own small business and I wish Dr. Cloud had written this for me years and years ago - it would have saved me a lot of heartache and sleepless nights! One of the hardest thing about ANY relationship is when you KNOW it needs to end but your heart or brain keep saying "I don't want to be mean" or "Maybe it will get better" or "Maybe they will change" or "Maybe I need to just give them more time." NO! If you know in your brain that things are not getting better or they aren't going to change, you just need to end it and move on to bigger and better things (both in a personal and business relationship!!!). It usually isn't about YOU, it is about THEM and their issues. You MUST move on to do God's will and to do better for yourself or the company. This book helps you understand that and helps you do it. I LOVE and thank God for Dr. Cloud! He is an amazing person and is an excellent writer.

Excellent book! I purchased this book because i've been in a broken relationship for far too long and needed a little push to make a "necessary ending". Necessary Endings is written with a main focus on those endings related to business however, Dr. Cloud is very clear in the book that all the information can be applied to personal relationships as well and uses examples throughout the book for both. Dr. Cloud does a wonderful job of getting his points across, he is clear and concise. Nothing is sugar coated, he shoots straight from the hip and I like that. He gets you thinking which is so important! For me the thing that clicked most was the way he described how to grow a beautiful rose bush. That was my "ah ha" moment. Thank you Dr. Cloud for helping me to get to this point. It's time to prune my bush! :) lol

A great book on understanding endings. It definitely gave me views I had never considered and made it ok for me to move on. Only ‘negative’ is there are too many executive/CEO examples everywhere and I think the message could have eliminated so many CEO examples and related to ‘normal’ people

I like Dr Cloud's writing, this book is up to his usual excellent standard. Accessible, and easy to read. Thought provoking and challenging. Highly recommended.

The Book is like a well balanced diet.It's not just a healthy meal,but it fills you completely.Absolutely brilliant work.

The content of the book is well worth the time it takes to read it. Cloud's writing style is easily understandable, and the life examples help to underscore and make relatable the truths he shares.We all go through endings in our lives, whether we initiate them or experience them from being initiated from outside ourselves, and this book is very helpful in negotiating the necessity of those endings.

A must read! Although this is written with business in mind it has benefited my personal life greatly. Thank you for this book!