poor “gardening” techniques

Let’s imagine for a moment that you are a gardener. Do any of the actions below seem like a good idea?

• Planting a seed and then digging it back up from time to time to check its progress
• Forcing open a flower bud with your fingernails because it isn’t opening fast enough
• Pulling on a tree limb because it’s not growing fast enough to provide shade

Hopefully you answered a resounding NO to all three of these scenarios. Any of those actions will inhibit the healthy growth of the seed, flower, or plant. Interestingly enough however, you CAN influence the environment each of these items are in to accelerate the desired outcomes.

In a similar way, I believe some leaders and managers practice poor “gardening” techniques with the people on their team when they are too helpful. They think that giving others all the answers to the situations they encounter will result in a healthy team member. It won’t. They are actually creating someone who will be dependent on them to solve future issues or challenges because they haven’t cultivated their analytical thinking skills, creativity, or confidence in their abilities.

...Before you drift to an unhealthy level of helping, ask yourself, “Will taking this action improve the ability of this team member to solve problems on their own in the future?” or “Is this going to help the organization build future leaders?” or even “Is this action going to help me grow this team member so that I can rely on them for bigger things in the future?” If the answer is no, consider one of the options below to improve your approach..

When a team member comes to you seeking advice or guidance, resist the urge to immediately tell them an answer. Instead, be prepared with questions like:

• What actions have you taken so far to solve the problem?
• What do you think needs to be done in this situation?
• Tell me what you see as the main issue here.
• What do you think we should do next to address the issue?
• What solution would you choose if I wasn’t here?
• What solution do you think I’m going to offer?
• How can I help you take the next step?

And don’t forget… when you ask these questions, really listen to their ideas.

Jones Loflin

"Why Being Too Helpful Is A Bad Habit For Leaders," by Jones Loflin. jonesloflin.com Accessed on June 22, 2022. 

build your wings on the way down

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

1979 November 18, Los Angeles Times, Section: The Book Review, Hymn to humanity from the cathedral of high technology by Ray Bradbury, (Review of “National Air and Space Museum”, text by C.D.B. Bryan), Page K1, Column 3, Los Angeles, California. (ProQuest). See also Quote Investigator. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

dig deep

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading. It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person.

Book education cannot accomplish this by itself. It needs the supplement and the stimulus of the exchange of ideas with other people. In particular, it means learning from other people. There is no human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep...

I... began to meet a great variety of people. Knowing my own deficiencies, I made a game of trying to make people talk about whatever they were interested in and learning as much as I could about their particular subject. After a while I had acquired a certain technique for picking their brains. It was not only great fun but I began to get an insight into many subjects I could not possibly have learned about in any other way. And, best of all, I discovered vast fields of knowledge and experience that I had hardly guessed existed.

This, I think, is one of the most effective and rewarding forms of education. The interest is there, lurking somewhere in another person. You have only to seek for it. It will make every encounter a challenge and it will keep alive one of the most valuable qualities a person has - curiosity. 

Eleanor Roosevelt

You Learn by Living by Eleanor Roosevelt. Westminster Press. 1983. p.8. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

ensuring cultural consistency

By the time I stepped down as CEO, we were hiring about 85 percent of our leaders from inside the company. A certain number of external hires will inject new thinking into the organization, but hiring internally the vast majority of the time is vital for ensuring cultural consistency.

David M. Cote

Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term. HarperCollins Leadership. 2020. p. 111

strategy had no relevance

Given what I’ve revealed about short-termism at Honeywell, you might wonder if we had a formal strategic planning process in place. We certainly did. Each July our businesses made presentations to the CEO, with similar presentations taking place down through the ranks. These presentations were, in a word, bullshit. Leaders had no clue how they would run their businesses over the next five years, what big initiatives they would have to push to make their goals, or what changes in their industry they should anticipate, or better, lead. Rather than choosing goals thoughtfully, they picked ambitious targets they thought would please their bosses, without regard for whether the business could realistically achieve them. They might have factored in the benefit of downsizing, the introduction of new products or services, process improvement, or other cost-savings initiatives, but then didn’t include as an expense the funds to bankroll these initiatives because it would depress the outlook. To cover themselves, they threw around lofty language and piled on hundreds of pages of charts and tables, hoping to look smart. Without much critical analysis, leaders gave their blessings, leaving the businesses to go execute whatever they wanted without follow-up or accountability. “Strategy,” such as it was, had no relevance. Operational considerations and making the quarter became daily concerns, with strategy fading to the background.

David M. Cote

Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term. HarperCollins Leadership. 2020. p. 38