My mother gave me a small plot to garden when I was ten-long before she bought me my first underwear and shoes. It was mine to cultivate, plant and care for my crops before harvesting them. Sugarcane was my crop of choice. I could harvest one at a time without asking for my parent's permission.
At that tender age, I discovered a source of tranquility and moments for creative thinking that are rarely experienced in our fast paced world. Up to 1985, I gardened whenever schools were closed. What many consider manual labor was an interconnection of mental, physical, and spiritual aspects that always left a sense of significance words cannot describe.
That interconnection was interrupted when I left Kenya for graduate studies in Wyoming early 1986. Ten years later, I was out school and had the time to till my backyard in Eagle, Idaho in the summer of 1995. It was something beautiful.
Once again, the old time stories my mother taught me as we gardened re-surfaced with the same meaningfulness. All the years of schooling, with emphasis on science subjects, had not erased the thrill that comes with helping a seed live to be a plant when planted and cared for. Since then gardening has been the incubation site for many speeches and workshops in addition to inspiring several other books.
Gardening has tips that can be applied in leadership strategies, parenting and spiritual issues. Here are some lessons for leaders (please note that if you are a parent, you are a leader):
1. Prepare the ground. Unless the ground is cultivated, rocks and unwanted plants eliminated, your harvest may not be as it could be. The seeds many never have a chance of surviving. Employees need an environment that is prepared and to be nurtured and challenged for professional, personal and/or mental growth. Sometimes gardens are prepared months before the onset of the planting season. You never go wrong by learning what you need to know about leadership skills before you are in position of leadership.
2. Plant early in the season. Midseason planting may or may not yield what you expect. You need to stipulate your expectations from the onset of employer-employee relationship-your organization's mission, core values and the role of the employee in the overall success of everyone. Don't wait until things go for you to teach employees their responsibilities. You can only straighten a piece of wood when it's green. When it's dry, you may break it when you try to straighten it.
3. Know the landscape of your garden. Even with a small piece of garden you would be surprised by how different parts are better for different crops. A tomato plant can succumb due to excess water or an attack from insects while the next plant is thriving. Keep leading, whether all is well or not. Different employees, like children from the same father and mother, have different requirements and perspectives about life-hence productivity. Knowing the differences helps in presenting them with tools that prepare them to use their uniqueness.
4. When plants are not doing well, don't blame them. You want to find out whether they lack water or manure or if there are worms and/or insects. Is the problem affecting all plants or just few plants of the same species? And in what side of the garden is the problem? When employees are not doing well, you want to know whether it's something you can control. Is it the lack of a two-way flow of information? Are there aspects that are due to their out-of work activities that are interfering with their at work responsibilities? Most of the time, the employee is not the problem...the issue of concern is.
5. Prepare for the unexpected. Farmers have done their best only to see locusts, worms, drought or others natural disturbances bring their labor to nothing. Today's employees are faced with a myriad of unexpected challenges, constant change, stiff competition and attractive reasons to be self-employed. Even well paid employees leave for what seems promising for the life they envision.
6. Forgive yourself. A farmer must learn to leave past disappointments behind in order to prepare his garden for future planting and, hopefully harvest. When mistakes happen, you cannot blame yourself forever. There is a tomorrow that needs your renewed hope.
7. Learn from others. Farmers exchange valuable information including best planting times of the season, best crops for certain areas and weeding strategies. Other leaders might be your best source of practical tips on how to address some concerns about your employees.
Caution: Plants can't explain their concerns and can't talk back either.
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