Autumn Release and Preparing for Winter

Autumn release and preparing for winter

The leaves are beginning to turn.

Children are going back to school. Holidays are ending. Diaries are filling again. For many of us, September brings a familiar acceleration.

New projects. New meetings. New conferences. New priorities.

But nature is doing almost exactly the opposite.

Autumn is a season of letting go.

Trees shed what they no longer need. Hedges are cut back. Growth slows. Energy is conserved for what is coming next.

Perhaps there is something useful here for us.

What could you let go of?

Before adding anything to your autumn, take a piece of paper and ask:

• What am I going to stop?

• Which project am I not going to start?

• Which meeting could I stop attending?

• Which conference don’t I really need to go to?

• Who, or what, do I need to say no to?

These aren’t questions about doing less for the sake of it.

They’re about creating the conditions to do what matters better.

One increasingly scarce condition for good leadership is time.

• Time to think.

• Time to notice.

• Time to make a better decision.

And better decisions lead to better outcomes.

When we cut things back, we can see further.

I notice this when we cut our hedges.

For months they become thicker and denser. Then we cut them back and suddenly there are gaps.

We can see further.

Trees do something similar. When the leaves fall, landscapes that have been hidden all summer become visible again.

Perhaps our working lives need the same thing.

We live in a world of almost limitless stimulation and accumulation. There is always another email to answer, another meeting to attend, another podcast to listen to, another initiative to begin.

Perhaps one of the most important leadership skills now is not deciding what else to do.

It is deciding what to let go of.

Preparing for winter

A tree doesn’t experience autumn as failure.

Letting go is part of how it prepares for winter. Resources are conserved. The tree survives the colder, darker months. When the conditions change, it is ready to grow again.

We can do something similar.

If you are feeling that familiar September anxiety as work accelerates again, don’t begin with another to-do list.

Take a piece of paper and make a not-to-do list.

Choose three things you can let go of this autumn.

• A meeting.

• A project.

• A commitment.

• Perhaps even an expectation you’ve been carrying for too long.

Then notice what becomes visible through the gaps.

Sometimes we need to cut back before we can see what we want to grow next.

We’ll shortly be publishing our first Autumn Outlook, with practical ideas for creating healthier conditions for the season ahead, together with insights from some of the people whose thinking we value.

Warm regards,

Mark