Removing a Work Item from a Strategy

Hi, I suspect this is going to be hard/impossible but sure someone (Christine) can advise

We have a Strategy which starts as follows:

3 x Send mail

then

2 x Workflow

All good so far. Our colleagues in the Finance department have decided we have too many Workflow Work Items

They would like to stop the first of the 2 Workflows

My guess is that that removing the unwanted Work Item is just about impossible:

"You cannot delete the work item template from this strategy template because active work item exists with this strategy template"

So on the assumption I can't just delete what options could I have?