The Best Way to Grow Your Business

Tend to your company like you tend to a garden.

It’s springtime. Every year, my wife and I go to the spring plant sale and get a handful of tomato plants, among other things. We very much have a suburban “garden,” which is to say we have a selection of pots as opposed to an actual plot of land where we plant things. It works well for the space we have, and we’re able to enjoy the literal and proverbial fruits of our labor.

If you’re not familiar with the deliciousness that is a tomato sandwich (preferably on white bread, a touch of mayo, black pepper, bacon, and a slice or three of an heirloom or beefsteak tomato), I highly recommend!

But these tomatoes we enjoy, much better than store bought, don’t just show up. Even with our small ‘garden,’ we have to buy the pots, redo the soil with fresh soil and feed, buy the tomato plants, weed the pots, water the plants, and tend to them near-daily. We have to make sure we give them cages to support the branches that grow. It’s debatable whether or not you should trim back the suckers (the small shoots) so the plant gives more nutrients to the larger, healthier shoots, but you certainly have to cut off any dead offshoots. We have to do this and so much more to ensure we enjoy the sandwiches we love in the warm summer days. It even took us a few years to find the right spot around our house to find where to put them so that they grow the best. It took, and still takes, effort to get the tomatoes we want.

And you know? It’s worth it every time.

Tending to a vegetable garden really isn’t different than tending to the garden that is your company.

Hiring the right employees is a great start, but you have to make sure you provide the right environment for them to grow.

What does this look like?

1.  Determine where you want your company to go.

Do you want to be the best global bread maker that feeds every person on earth? Do you want to break into the computer chip market and provide technology at the most affordable price to the masses? Or do you want to serve your local community in some special way?

Whatever you want your company to do, make sure you tell people about it. I for one want Company Connections to be known as the professional services organization that heals companies. Healthy companies have employees who love their work, their team, and are in sync with the owner’s vision. That’s where I’m going, and I want others to join me on that journey.

2.  Help others understand why their work matters.

This is a crucial step in creating a healthy company. It’s not enough to give people checklists and tasks disconnected from why things matter. If you’re just looking for button pressers, you’ll find people who may or may not press any button they see—even when it’s the wrong button to press.

3.  Give people a quantitative path to success.

You must support your employees. Just as tomatoes need structure and pruning to prevent overgrowth and bad actors, you must do the same. This means giving people quantifiable, measurable targets they can achieve. And, it includes doing the hard work of coaching people up or out of your organization when they’re not a fit.

Sometimes when we garden, we have other stray, healthy plants that find their way into the vegetable or herb pots. We don’t have anything against those other plants, but we know that if we leave them, they can take over. At the least, they take nutrients away from what we want. If you’re in a leadership role, be it a business owner, strategic leader, or manager, you must have the courage to make the hard decisions on whether people are doing more harm than good.

These are things that everyone at your company can do, but if you’re in a position of leadership, you must understand that by saying “Yes!” to your position of power you also say “Yes!” to making the tough calls when they come up. This is a crucial part of growing your business!

4.  Connect the elements of your business.

There’s a gardening technique called “companion planting.” For example, tomatoes and beans are great companions because they protect each other from pests and promote the growth of one another. This common technique promotes healthy growth of the entire garden and allows the gardener to get more out of the limited space they have.

The Healthy Company Framework uses a 20-60-20 approach to “Know What You’re Doing.” That is to say, to do your job well, you must understand who hands you work, how to do your work, and who you give your work to. Those people ‘left’ (those who hand you work) and ‘right’ (those you hand your work to) of you are the 20 percents of how to know what you’re doing. It’s the responsibility of every leader to make sure people understand how they’re connected with the people left and right of them.

As your business develops this way of thinking and work, you being to see how the 20s overlap. My right hand 20 is your left hand 20. This creates connectivity throughout your organization—without the need for massive mapping sessions or expensive consulting engagements.

When it comes to growing your business, you are in much more control than you think. Sure, you can’t force grow your employees just like I can’t for the tomato plant to produce fruit, but you can tend to the environment that promotes growth.

If you’re not actively walking through the garden that is your company, and if you’re not actively adding good nutrients and pruning back what’s not wanted, you will not have the company you think you do. I’ve watched too many companies think that, “because I did this once, I don’t have to do it again.” I urge you to be diligent as you seek to grow a healthy company.

As always, we’d love to help you. Company Connections is designed to help people like you and companies like yours become better equipped to tend well to your garden, whatever it may be.

For some added joy, enjoy this clip, put together from scenes from the great late Fred Rogers’s hit television show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, who challenged us to grow things in the garden of our minds:  https://youtu.be/OFzXaFbxDcM

Grow your business like you grow your garden and tend to the things that matter. See how The Healthy Company Framework teaches you how to best cultivate a blooming business.