A walk in our home garden got me musing about a well-watered garden and organizational leadership.
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| Top: During construction of our home in 2003-4 on barren, denuded land; bottom: 16 years later lush with thoughtful planting of trees, plants and shrubs. |
Reflections #55
A walk in our home garden got me musing about organizational leadership
and what it takes to get to the top of the heap.
Complete story at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewanthony/detail/recent-activity/ and www.matchatter.blogspot.com
Missing the Trees for the Woods
How managers grow into leadership roles
Until a few weeks back, I barely paid attention to
the garden we are privileged to have at our home, replete with variety of
flowering shrubs, fruit bearing trees, and leafy plants that soothe the eyes, provide
oxygen for the lungs, absorb carbon dioxide to deter climate change, and provide
shelter from the sweltering heat of the summer for those who happen to be in
the area. A desirable CSR mandate for environmentally conscious companies.
In fact, a recently shared post of the burst of greenery at our
home was shown to a convalescing patient by a dear friend, bringing cheer to her
mother’s heart, as the splendour and effusion of nature played out before her
eyes. The pictures are posted at https://www.instagram.com/p/CBpr0_mDFOs/?igshid=1os133xypq80v
and at https://www.instagram.com/p/CBpsyx3DAB2/?igshid=6thiijcoc8d7
Recent showers in Bangalore has made our garden a tapestry of interwoven
colours and shapes, magnetically drawing me to study the ‘Eden on earth’ in
greater depth after 14 long years of its evolving presence in my life.
I began to acquaint myself with the flora tagging behind my wife, a
planter's daughter, the author of this munificence to the neighbourhood, when
she took our guests around. I try to learn a bit about each plant with each
excursion like an intern learning from his supervisor.
I began to notice how different each plant was from the other.
I was even more fascinated, when with camera in hand, I took closeup pictures
of the flowers and leaves. The infinite patterns in them were mesmerizing.
In business there is a saying not to 'miss the woods for the trees',
implying that the ultimate success in the corporate world comes from having the
‘big picture’ to make it to the top management layer and to a board-level role.
Each of the corporate honchos of today and in
the yesteryears, came from a discipline of study in which they graduated
and grew professionally over a period of time into responsible positions in the
firm and in the industry.
The career path would be marked by phases of ascent: managed small
departmental teams, held forth at company strategy meetings, led high impact
and profitable projects of significance to their company, contributed to the
vision of the enterprise in their capacity as senior executives in the company,
and finally, they became first among equals reaching the pinnacle of the
corporate pyramid because they were perceived amongst their peers to have the
big picture to deliver y-o-y growth as expected by the shareholders and
promoters.
At each phase of their growth, these potential leaders, switched
between ‘seeing the woods for the trees’ and seeing the ‘trees for the woods’.
Just one track could not have cut it for them in their unrelenting march to the
top of the heap.
They grew in the organization with a personal vision which fused
with the company vision snapping up aligned opportunities that presented
themselves or prospected deliberately, in a fast-changing,
technologically-accelerating world. They recognized that 'what they see today
is not what it will be tomorrow'.
At the head of this article there are two stark pictures. The first
picture is a google map of the barren plot of land on which sits our home
today. Not a single tree existed over acres of land when we began to build
our home. And, one beside it, is a snippet of what the rest of the garden looks
like.
Like an early promoter of an enterprise, my planter wife had a
vision of what she would like her home to be. She bought and planted at regular
intervals with a big picture in mind of the variety she would like adorning her
garden.
It's sixteen years to date in 2020. We are blessed to live in the 'woods' while being surrounded by apartments, in the middle of bustling Sarjapur – the third fastest residential hub in the country - and the fastest growing in Bangalore.
Plants have seasons, soil, sun and moisture that
helps them grow. Fast growing enterprises, such as unicorns, have technology, bootstrapped
or funded business models, economic growth tailwinds, and the right talent
in the right position, spurring their growth.
For a promoter or corporate
leader to manage a business well, small or big, comes
down to tracking a few key metrics – the trees: Net Interest Income for banks,
per square foot realizations for retail, organic account growth for advertising
agencies, etc.
The future business tycoon should also have the ability to simultaneously
keep a sharp eye on the woods – the environmental and economic engine that
drives his or her business.
Rising tides lift all boats. Being fooled by spike in its own revenue
growth while the industry is growing even faster leads to erosion of share and
doomsday looming not too far, as the industry leader wipes the floor with his
competitors.
The horticulture in our garden is of the same soil and
gets the same sunshine and rain. An ambitious company would not want to
restrict itself to just one fruit or flower or leafy plant as a business line,
in a manner of speaking. It would use the ‘soil’, its expertise and assets in
its command, to multiply it and grow into a conglomerate - the woods.
A gardener knows his trees by their name and by their
needs. A company promoter, businessman or
a corporate head should know what makes the business tick, to build
adjacent or new business, consciously and in a phased manner, so as not to be
overleveraged, to hedge his overall business against headwinds, as deep woods
do during inclement weather in protecting the trees.
As the planter builds his plantation one tree at a time a
corporate leader should build his business one business line at a time to know
each business well enough to be in control even when the operations are handled
by individual managers.
Know the ‘trees for the woods’ and know the ‘woods for the trees’
to build and manage a profitable, competitive and sustainable business that has
the richness and celestial beauty of a well-planted and watered garden – a gift
to the community.
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