Creating the right Culture & Climate in your People Garden

[Jason Stevens]

 

Culture  = the soil conditions - It’s all about putting some effort into the groundwork.

 

 

 Preparing the ground or soil ready to receive the seeds or plant is the most important investment towards your goal of growing strong and healthy plants. My Dad is a painter and decorator and for years he has told me that you can’t just slap some paint up in a room. That approach is a “bit shoddy” as he would say. This shoddiness will eventually cause more problems later on.  If you want to do the job properly then 80% of the work goes into the preparation. Sanding, stripping, filling in cracks and undercoating are all required before you even take the lid off the paint tin.

As Abraham Lincoln said

 ‘If I had six hours to chop down a tree I’d spend the first four sharpening my axe’.

 

 

The same is for any important job, task or event like, getting married, playing sport and yes, even managing people. Gardeners spend time creating the right conditions before they put the plant in the soil. Gardeners dig over, remove weeds and pests, feed with manure and assign spaces for each plant based on what they would like that plant to achieve, add or contribute to the garden. Before you introduce people into your garden how do you create the right culture and soil conditions?

 

However, for most of us we already have or inherit an established garden with plants already in place. So, how would they describe the ideal workplace culture and how does that relate to their thoughts and feelings about the current culture or climate in the workplace. Is there synergy or gaps? What recommendations would they make to improve their soil conditions or make the garden a sunnier place to be?

 

 

 

Culture Led from the top –  The Head Gardener

Company “Culture” is often over complicated – Consultants like to turn this simple seven letter word into a 700 page report which confuses more than it explains. Every page turned can be timed with the “Ching ! Ching!” noise of someone tapping the digits into the next invoice for your business. How about this for a cheap but essentially similar alternative.

 

Culture is a blend of working practices (policy, procedures, rules and processes) mixed with the competence, beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviour of the leader or manager, which in turn influence the way people think, feel and act when in work. That’s it!

 

A head gardener whose general view is that people should not be trusted, who need to be controlled and managed closely and should not speak until spoken to will usually create the rules and regulations that support that belief.

 

Ultimately, this manifests itself in a culture that they have created which in this case would be quite autocratic, controlling and stifling for the people trying to grow there.

 

 

 Even if you are not the Head Gardener, you can have an influence over how your plants think, feel and act in the culture you create within your planting arena or part of the garden. You can create a micro culture that helps you create and deliver better results than your peers through your own words and actions.

 

 

 

Two flower beds in the same garden can have very different results based on how the soil was prepared and maintained in each. A manager has a massive impact on the culture they influence by what they say, do and genuinely believe in.

 

 

 

People often talk of “Culture Change” and make it sound like they are going to change the world! In a garden this would be as daft as replacing all the old soil with new soil. Culture “Change” doesn't have to be as drastic as that and certainly nowhere near as much hard work.

 

The culture of your soil and your business can be improved by a bit of “digging over”. Turning over old ground can reap great rewards.

 

Why do gardeners turn over old ground?

 

A great gardener sometimes stands back and looks at parts of the garden that have stagnated, or are not looking their best or performing very well.

 

 

 

Breathe fresh air into it

Recreate a sense of excitement and energy in the business. Get ideas for refreshing the workplace.

 

Loosen things up

Allow people to relax and feel human rather than robotic, a number or just a plant label.

 

Help root growth

Help people to grasp new skills, knowledge and gain confidence.

 

Remove rocks and  rubbish

Get rid of the barriers and things that get in the way of doing a good job for you and the business. Make things dead simple, easy to do and achieve.

 

 

Create space

A clear and empty flower bed to start working from – a clean sheet or bill of health.

 

Instil some creativity and allow your people to use their brains as well as their hands. Or this could be starting with a blank sheet of paper in a certain part of the business or operation.

 

Applying a mulch or top dressing

Making the environment more attractive to live and work in – even new furniture, quiet spaces and better tools to do the job, like a computer system that works! These can all help out and they don’t need to break the bank.

 

 

What about refreshing your soil?

What’s it like working in your “shed” and how long / how much would it take to change some of the aspects listed above?

  

Have you asked your staff what would make the ideal environment to grow and work? If they had hold of your spade, which parts of the garden would they dig over?

 

 

 

In summary 

  What previous investments have you made in creating the right conditions and what were the results?

 

  What made it so good for you and how can you bring some of those aspects into your garden? Likewise, what have been the worst conditions you’ve encountered and what aspects from past experiences could you avoid, remove or prevent from occurring in your perfect garden?

  How much are your plants feeling the heat or are they being left out in the cold?

  How resilient are they to sudden changes in temperature? How hot can they get before they burn-out and how cold can they be before they fade, get frost bitten or die? (leave the garden)

  Who are your full sun and part shade plants? How can you build rapport and therefore success?

  How can you prepare staff from sudden changes in adverse organisational / business weather forecasts?