Corporate Culture: The Victory Garden

I've started writing a blurb in Center Partners' monthly newsletter, "Off the Hook". Here's this month's column:

Have you ever planted a garden? Just a generation ago everybody had a garden but, unfortunately, it is becoming a lost art. Gardens are a lot of work! It’s not as simple as throwing some seeds in the dirt and hoping they’ll grow. To have a good, healthy garden you’ve got to have the right kind of soil. You’ve got to till the ground. You’ve got to clear rocks, sticks and other debris from your garden plot. You have to fertilize. You have to rake. You have to sow your seeds. You have to weed. You have to water. You have to keep critters (and in my case, kids) out of the garden. Are you getting my point? Good gardens don’t just happen. They require substantial planning and effective execution on the part of the gardener. And even with all the plowing, planting, raking, hoeing and watering, there’s no guarantee that you’ll have a good yield. No wonder gardening is becoming a lost art!

I think gardening is the perfect metaphor for building a healthy corporate culture. A great work environment doesn’t just happen on its own. Just like a garden, building a healthy, vibrant culture at work requires substantial planning and effective execution. It requires effort from every individual at every level of the organization, and we might not see the “fruits (or vegetables!) of our labors” immediately. But one thing is certain: every organization will have a culture. The question is will it be a culture that we have carefully planned, fed and nurtured? Or will it be whatever culture we allow to take root? Any gardener knows that growing a bumper crop of delicious veggies takes a lot of work but growing weeds takes zero effort on our part. It goes deeper than that though, because weeds will actually choke out the good, healthy plants that we want to grow. So the gardener’s job is not just to nurture the good plants but to pluck out the bad ones as well. It’s a constant fight - The never ending battle of man vs. weeds! (Start dramatic theme music here.)

The folks at the executive and director level of Center Partners are actively engaged in conversations about CP’s culture as we speak. You’ll be hearing and seeing more about this in the coming weeks and months. On a personal level, it has been very exciting to observe and participate in some of those conversations. I have been impressed with the insight, imagination and commitment of the people involved in the process. But everyone, not just the executives and directors, have key roles to play in CP’s culture. My kids get sick of me saying this, but we have a fairly common mantra/question in our home: “Am I being part of the problem or part of the solution?” Maybe, in keeping with the whole gardening theme, we could ask ourselves, “Am I nurturing a nice healthy garden or a scraggly weed patch?”

This past fall my family sat down for a dinner we made from things that came only from our garden. We had potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, raspberries and strawberries. Believe it or not, we felt a great sense of satisfaction knowing that we had “grown” all of those yummy fruits and veggies ourselves. Similarly, I think we can all feel proud of the culture we’ve grown and are growing here at Center Partners. We all have a stake in the kind of environment we have here at CP and it’s up to each of us to decide whether we want a Victory Garden or a weed patch. If we choose the Victory Garden then let’s all dig in and get our hands dirty!

Effective Leadership: "Sit right back and you'll hear a tale..."

I've always had a great affinity for Gilligan; I grew up watching reruns of Gilligan's Island every day after school; I can sing the theme song (both versions! If you're a true Gilligan afficienado you know what I'm talking about) word for word; I've even been told I have an uncanny resemblance to Gilligan himself - not sure if I should be proud of that or not. Believe it or not, I learned a few good lessons from "little buddy."

Remember the episode where Gilligan makes a set of wings? In one scene he has his wings on and is flapping madly and actually hovering about ten feet off the ground. He says "Skipper! Skipper! Look at me! I'm flying!." Skipper replies, "You can't fly! It's impossible! Get down from there!" So Gilligan dejectedly crashes to the ground. Gilligan was actually flying until Skipper "shot him down" with what he said.

Here's the moral to that little story: People have a tendancy to live up to their expectations. If you set the bar low - guess what - that's exactly what you get. If you set the bar high - that's exactly what you'll get. This is basically the same theme as my last post. We can "condition" people to perform (or not perform) by what we say (or don't say) to them.

Negative conditioning or negative messages have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. As an example, look at our current economic situation. For the past 18 months the media has been bombarding us with how bad the economy was. Even though the vast majority of Americans were still doing ok financially, the media (and some politicians') constant drum beat about the economy forced people to actually change their behavior - in a way that just caused more harm to the economy - they spent less money! Don't get me wrong, there are some major issues going on in our economy right now but if you believed what much of the media and politicos are saying we are on the verge of armageddon. The reality is the economy today is bad, but no where near as bad as it was even during the late 70's and early 80's. It goes to show if you say something often enough and loud enough people will begin to believe it and act the part.

Good leaders inspire. Good leaders play on the positive not the negative. Good leaders bring out the best in people - not the worst.

If the Skipper would've been on his game in that episode he would have encouraged Gilligan in his apparent successful attempts at flying. Who knows, maybe they could have flown off the island years sooner? Anything would've been better than the professor's coconut powered distress beacon!