Plato supposedly said that an unexamined life is not worth living.
I recently lost my house and most everything I owned in a fire. It’s not a fate I’d wish on anyone, but it was also a gift that forced me to re-examine my life. Suddenly freed from the gravitational pull of all the accumulated stuff, you realize how little of it truly matters. It’s remarkably easy to live without it. You can live more intentionally and focus more energy on the things that really matter, that bring joy and satisfaction.
I think there’s a business analogy or two here as well. Most organizations have partners of one sort of another, but how many of them are truly essential to your success? 
When was the last time you examined your partner ecosystem as whole? Sure, you have regular business reviews with each of them individually. But I’m willing to bet that a chunk of those partners are not worth having.
They pull you down. They take up a lot of your time and effort, distracting you and your team from the partner gems that really deliver (or have the potential to deliver) outstanding results.
It’s hard to say goodbye to some of them, but it might be for the best. It’s hard to get rid of your stuff, too – after all, you spent a lot of money and effort buying those things. Similarly, you invested a lot of time and energy recruiting, supporting, managing through issues with those partners. But those are sunk costs — hanging onto these because of the original investment won’t make it more valuable to keep around.
Maybe you think they eventually will start delivering, just like the stuff you don’t use but hope you’ll get around to finally using. Or possibly it’s hard to turn down the sales, even if they’re only incremental. But just like every item in your closet isn’t worth the space it takes up, every sale isn’t a good sale.
Sometimes partners are hard to get rid of because they’ve become old friends. Like the things in your house that hold some memories, you have shared experiences with some of those partners. You know each other’s kids, maybe exchange holiday gifts. But you can’t keep everything that has a memory, and you can’t keep all the partners that don’t deliver just because of your history.
Whatever the reason, collectively they weigh you down, just like all the stuff you don’t need, but still need to clean and move around.
Just as an unexamined life may not be worth living, an unexamined partner may not be worth keeping.
Take a leap of faith and get rid of your partner clutter. Free up your time and mental energy to focus on those that really matter – that really have potential to help grow your business.
Leave a Reply