Caterina Fake
“So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is more important than working hard.”
It’s springtime. Everything is turning green. The grass growing.
Despite my efforts at trying to keep my lawn looking nice, inevitably a few weeds tend to sprout up. When I get rid of one, it seems like there are three or four more that are right behind it.
An old farmer who had beautiful yard once told my Dad that he never used weed killer. This surprised my Dad who asked what his secret was.
“Fertilizer, if you get enough healthy grass it chokes out the weeds.
Workplace Dandelions
The most common weed in my front yard is the dandelion. From a distance it is a pretty yellow flower, however up close it is actually kind of ugly and really serves no other purpose other than to spread other dandelions to my yard.
Think about your workplace culture. Do you have any “dandelions”? Employees who seem alright from a distance, but the closer you look you see they are serving no real purpose other than to spread negativity to the rest of your team.
Left untouched these workplace dandelions can spread quickly soon overtaking your beautifully manicured office culture.
Methods of Mayhem
Usually there are two different ways we get rid of weeds in our yard. Either manually pulling up each weed or spreading weed killer over the entire yard. Neither method is particularly effective and there are often unintended consequences with each.
Pulling Weeds.
If we spend our time trying to individually address every weed in our workplace it tends to be an exercise in futility on a couple fronts.
First, we devote to much precious time to one person while several others are sprouting up around you.
Secondly, we are taking time away from fertilizing the lawn, encouraging and building up the healthy teammates.
Weed Killers
Killing weeds using a broadcast method is often easiest. You just have to spray the lawn and the chemical magically kills the weeds, leaving the healthy grass intact.
Although it does not always happen this way. You inevitably kill some healthy grass in this process. Also, the lawn looks a little unsightly as the weeds & crabgrass are withering away.
This happens when we try a broadcast method to address the weeds in our workplace. Often in an effort to address the problem of few we message the whole team. This creates mistrust, confusion and finger pointing. Soon just like spraying the weed killer you begin to see the healthy culture wither.
A Healthy Fix
So maybe the old Farmer had some good workplace advice. The best way to get rid of weeds in the workplace is focus on building a healthy culture.
Create a culture where weeds are not tolerated.
Create a culture so positive that a weed cannot get the oxygen it needs to survive.
Create a culture where the healthy lawn is empowered to run off the weeds
As leader your main job should be to fertilize the lawn, not pick the weeds. If you spend your day digging up dandelions, you may need to re-evaluate your culture.