It’s Spring in the Midwest, and if you like fresh produce, that might mean growing your own. I love to grow things and gardening is one of those avocations that is hard work, enjoyable and you literally get to eat the fruits of your labor. Sounds like a win-win.
I’ve learned many things about leading growth in organizations from working in my garden, but these three are among the most apparent.
One, it’s not all about you. You can till the soil, plant the seeds, and keep the weeds at bay, but you can’t make the plants grow or control the weather. Lots of other factors come into play, and leaders are indebted to our teams to help our organizations flourish. Helping these teams to understand how and why they are important is crucial to optimal growth.
Second, you can’t control every important factor, but you can plan for bad things – insects, drought – to happen and react quickly when they do. I learned something important from a boss who was really pretty unpleasant to work for. That being said, he taught me that you can always do something to make a bad situation better. If an important customer takes her business elsewhere, a busy surgeon goes across the street to a competitor, a key leader in the organization suddenly resigns, you can react quickly if you have a plan in place.
Third, keep the weeds out. One thing about fertile soil, plenty of rain and sunshine is that along with your tomato plants, weeds will grow. If you let them get away from you, your crop is diminished or destroyed. All leaders know that there are some things in their organizations that are not right, but fixing them is too much work, or will make someone angry or hurt someone’s feelings. Those problems only get worse, so weed them out when they are small or risk having them choke the growth out of your organization.
Happy gardening and may your leadership prosper!
