Gardening

by Mark McClanahan

“They (employees) are empowered in much the same way a gardener empowers seeds?—?not by forcing them to grow but by tapping the power that lies dormant within them,” says Gerald Weinberg in his book “Becoming a Technical Leader.” This analogy of a leader being a gardener recently became relevant to me at Mosby.

A direct report of mine was struggling for a few months. As I was focusing on why this was happening, it dawned on me that I was a part of the problem. And not only was I failing but this person’s peers were contributing to the situation in a similar way. A way that actually affected other peers too. The bottom line is that most of us were not paying attention to the needs of each other. Just as a gardener has to tailor his or her approach to caring for different types of plants, peers on a leadership team must take the time to nurture each other in ways that match their fellow teammates’ needs.

So, how did I address this? I wanted to emphasize the importance of the management team members making their relationships and support of each other a priority. To do this, I took the team out to lunch. At the table, I had a different type of houseplant sitting on the table at each person’s place setting. I asked them what the significance of the plants was. We discussed how each plant has different care and feeding needs, much like each of us on the management team does. We also discussed how a plant will die just as a relationship will die if you don’t continue to give it attention. In the end, we agreed to make our relationships a priority.

Mark McClanahan (mmcclanahan@callmosb.com or 314.909.1800) is the president at Mosby Building Arts.