Home Leadership Turn Archives Me RampUp Solutions  
 

  • Categories

  • Archives
 

Weeds in Your Garden

by Miki Saxon

https://www.flickr.com/photos/southpaw2305/3465219891/

This post first appeared in 2012, but I believe both its premise and its point deserve another airing.

Managing Weeds

As companies grow and managers build their organizations they frequently talk about “weeding out” low performing employees—Jack Welch was a ninja weeder.

If that thought has crossed your mind you might take a moment to think about James Russell Lowell’s comment, “A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.”

As with weeds, there are better ways to look at under-performing employees.

Seeing a weed as food changes everything, just as seeing people’s potential does.

95% of the time it’s management failures that create weeds and those failures run the gamut from benign neglect to malicious abuse and everything in-between.

Weeds can come from outside your company, inter-departmental transfers and even from peers in your own backyard.

What is amazing is how quickly a weed will change with a little TLC.

“Weeds can grow quickly and flower early, producing vast numbers of genetically diverse seed.”

People grow quickly, too, and often produce innovative ideas — just because someone listened instead of shutting them down.

And while trust that your attitude won’t change takes longer to build, the productivity benefits happen fairly rapidly.

So before you even think about weeding look in the mirror and be sure that the person looking back is a gardener and not a weed producer.

Flickr image credit: Clare Bell

Leave a Reply

RSS2 Subscribe to
MAPping Company Success

Enter your Email
Powered by FeedBlitz
About Miki View Miki Saxon's profile on LinkedIn

Clarify your exec summary, website, etc.

Have a quick question or just want to chat? Feel free to write or call me at 360.335.8054

The 12 Ingredients of a Fillable Req

CheatSheet for InterviewERS

CheatSheet for InterviewEEs

Give your mind a rest. Here are 4 quick ways to get rid of kinks, break a logjam or juice your creativity!

Creative mousing

Bubblewrap!

Animal innovation

Brain teaser

The latest disaster is here at home; donate to the East Coast recovery efforts now!

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation or call 00.733.2767. $10 really really does make a difference and you'll never miss it.

And always donate what you can whenever you can

The following accept cash and in-kind donations: Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Red Cross, World Food Program, Save the Children

*/ ?>

About Miki

About KG

Clarify your exec summary, website, marketing collateral, etc.

Have a question or just want to chat @ no cost? Feel free to write 

Download useful assistance now.

Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.

Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
while $10 a month has exponential power.
Always donate what you can whenever you can.

The following accept cash and in-kind donations:

Web site development: NTR Lab
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.