By Sondra Calhoun
This spring I decided to become a serious Gardner. I built several raised beds, started out numerous different plants in our shop, looked up expert advice on the internet, and envisioned all of the incredible vegetables, potatoes, and sunflowers we would soon be eating. What I discovered about myself in this wonderful new season is that, for me anyway, “soon” means in a month or so. However, my timetable was not even closely aligned with nature’s. We experienced a cooler and wetter spring than normal, so many of my plants were slow to grow until the middle of July rolled around. Some never even made it out of their infancy. Here I am, 3 months later, still waiting on my tomatoes to turn red and the cucumbers to look less like finger pickles and more like full grown cucumbers.
The big ‘a-ha’ that I have experienced is that growth and how fast it happens is impacted by so many factors, and some out of our control. As leaders, we can do our best to create the right environment, provide nourishment to our people, even follow the latest directions about developing others, but ultimately it is up to those we lead to grow when they choose to. They decide how they want to respond to the unpredictable outside stimulants, uncertainty of seasons, and the periodic failures (bugs in the garden) that are common in every workplace or situation. Our responsibility as leaders is to help them see the same vision as the organization, take advantage of the support systems in place, engage in smart risk taking, and ask for help when they are up against too big of a challenge.
Just like in my garden where some plants took off right away and were eager to grow to their full potential, while other plants stayed small and unproductive, people will respond differently in the same environment. Leaders cannot control that, but they can provide a culture that is hospitable to growth and puts many mechanisms in place to encourage it. If some choose not to learn and grow, then it is probably not the right environment for them, and they need to find one that is. Leaders need to find the best plants (people) that will grow in this particular environment (culture) and then provide the right amount of nutrients for each one to flourish