Work Daze

Here’s a question: are you a flower or a weed? It’s important that we answer
this botanical query because a new management craze is growing in the rich
loam of Mahogany Row. Your bosses are not satisfied with being masters of
the universe. Now they also want to be master gardeners.

The management mania for gardening is the work of Erika Andersen, a “New
York based organizational specialist and executive coach” to firms like MTV
Networks, Comcast and Bank of America. Not satisfied with spreading her own
brand of fertilizer in the executive suite, Ms. Andersen has now published a
book, “Growing Great Employees – Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary
Performers.”

According to the press release that turned up in my electronic compost heap,
the book was called “refreshing” by “The Harvard Business Review.” What
“Better Homes & Gardens” thinks about Ms. Andersen’s efforts was not
revealed, but I assume they were also positive. The book would certainly
look good sitting on any executive’s desk, and even a manager who didn’t buy
into her gardening philosophy could always use the handsome volume to throw
at any tulip or milkwort who refused to grow. And it could come to that.

“You can’t make employees grow any more than you can make plants grow,”
suggests the author. “What you can do: make sure you get the right people,
‘plant’ them in the right job, and create the optimal conditions for them to
grow.”

Of course, the whole gardening idea is simply a metaphor, and because I know
you’ve never met a metaphor you didn’t like, let me share the bounty of this
strange harvest. If your boss is going to treat you like a plant, you don’t
want to be a daisy, Dudley. You want to be a venus fly trap.

“Prepare the soil by listening” is the first rule of the gardener manager.
Listening, Andersen instructs, “establishes an open, nourishing environment
that allows ideas and people to flourish.” Unfortunately, as our author
points out, managers tend to do more talking than listening, a toxic dose of
horticultural foolishness under which we lilies of the cubical tend to
wither and die.

If your manager does not sufficiently nourish your soil, I suggest that you
be upfront with him, her or them. Stand up like a Sunflower at your next
staff meeting and declare, “This little buttercup is parched and wilting. I
need more nutrients if I am to grow and flourish.” If your boss won’t shut
up or listen up, feel free to grab for the donuts. Even a buttercup has to
eat to grow, right?

“Don’t be afraid to prune” is another rule for the executive gardener, a
grafting of the law of business with the law of the jungle that would scare
Luther Burbank. “Gardeners prune plants to encourage them in the right
direction and for more frequent blooms,” opines the author.

To avoid an unwelcome lopping off of your limbs, or your salary, I suggest
you make sure you grow in the right direction, right from the start. It’s
called heliotropism where I come from and what it means, in workplace terms,
is that you grow towards the sun – that is, the power source.

Since you are competing for executive sunshine with all the other plants in
your plant, I suggest put your whole body into the effort. Lean sharply
towards your boss when he or walks by your cubical. You can actually lean
into them when involved in a face-to-face. Get your stamen inches from
their pistil, and it will not only show that you looking for
cross-pollination, but, very likely, freak them out so thoroughly that they
will leave you alone.

“Re-evaluate when it’s not working” is the final tidbit of gardening advice.
“Some plants are invasive and impede their neighbors’ growth,” writes the
author. “They need to be moved for a better fit, either within the company
or without.” If your boss views you as a plant that would thrive better in
the rich soil of the unemployment office, better make sure you start
blooming. Otherwise, even the dandiest Dandelion could be yanked out of the
garden like an unwelcome weed.

If the situation is hopeless, forget headhunters. Submit your resume,
including genus and species, to the U.S. Agricultural Service and have
yourself declared an endangered species. This helps. I haven’t done any
useful work in years and still, no boss would ever risk pulling out a “late
Blooming marigoldman.”