Gatekeeper or Team Builder - Part 2

by Danny Summers

Last week we explored two distinctly different types of owners and managers I see across garden center management today. Do you remember... the Gatekeeper manages by receiving all or most outside information and decides who in the organization needs to know what, who to distribute the information to, and who needs to know, on a limited basis.

At the same time I hear numerous owners and managers saying these types of comments: I have to much to do. I have to much on my plate. I can't possibly do anything more. I am wore out. We work all the time. It's got to get easier.

Their To-Do list looks like this:

In contrast, the other option is to be a Leader or Team-Builder. This approach or style to management turns from being an issue-approach to a people-central vision. It begins to break out responsibilities to individual team members. It encourages individual team member growth and development. It makes individuals feel more responsible and their job can be more satisfying.

The traditional (old style) management structure might be drawn like this graphic, showing the owner/manager at the top, middle management in the middle and other staff at the bottom. In this structure, everything rolls downhill. Good and bad. It all goes downhill. It is easy in this structure to have both middle managers and staff feeling "out of the loop."

In contrast, I went back to a great graphic Tim Miles shared with us a year ago, showing the opposite structure. In this model, at the base (or heart) of the business is the core values that everything is built upon. Everything is built from there and it all focuses on the most important part of the business at the top of the pyramid, the Customer.

So we could take Tim's core values structure and apply it to management style. In this shifted design, the base is the owner/manager, engaging middle management and involving other staff to become an integrated organization, all supporting the core values and purpose and serving the customer with focus. In this model, the customer is at the Top!

Our Group Team-Building expert, John Kennedy, tells us "to GROW our business, we must GROW our People!"

John  also talks about getting your whole staff on "The Blue Train." John says often you will have some staff on the Red Train. They are the first to be negative, tell you why new ideas won't work, and even influence others to get on board the (negative) Red Train... which is going no where. On the other hand, he says getting the whole staff on the blue train will empower the company to accomplish great things with its destination as anywhere!

With these examples, you can easily see the emphasis is on involving your staff in developing your customer-focused programs. A great example of this was shared by one of The Group's Best Practice Centers, B.B. Barns' owner, Barney Bryant, when he told us:

"We began to transition from a top-down style to a real team approach in 2011. One of the biggest things I had to first learn was JUST TURN LOOSE. We realized our biggest asset is our people. We began helping our people develop their skills and abilities. Each team member is accountable (with rewards). What we really learned was when our people are happy, we have happy customers!"

In Part 3, we will explore some of the challenges in attracting (and keeping) the right team today.

Stay tuned!

Danny