I live in the middle of a desert along with three million or so other people (Phoenix, Arizona). Most of us moved here from really cold places like Minnesota, Michigan, or Ohio. No matter what our place of origin, many of us like to have a garden. A few vegetables, flowers, trees or shrubs. But most of us have learned that we need to get used to some very different kinds of flora and fauna. Cactus, Yucca, Agavé, Creosote, Palo Verde, and so forth have replaced Rhododendron, Azalea, and Maple. Everything is different. It is hotter, drier, the “soil” is like concrete, there’s lots of salt and dust, the “growing” season is twelve months long, and you can never work in the garden without bleeding from contact with something with lots of thorns. Nonetheless, even with so many differences, the basic principles of gardening still apply. The gardener needs to have an objective in mind, develop a plan, choose appropriate plants, prepare the soil, plant with care, fertilize, irrigate, weed, prune, harvest, etc. The gardener also needs to have plans for emergencies. What do you do about pests? Droughts? Floods? Hate mail from your HOA (home owners association)?
The same principles apply to organizational leaders
There are all kinds of different organizations in a wild assortment of industries and locations. There are ship builders, dentist’s offices, circuit board manufacturers, government agencies, bookstores, restaurants, construction companies, and charitable foundations. Each presents its own set of unique needs, challenges, potentialities, idiosyncrasies, and habits. Each has its own pests (bureaucracy, unfair competitors, negative media attention, poor environmental conditions). Every time I begin work with a new company, I am warned, “We are different. Our situation is unique. What works for other companies won’t apply in our distinctive culture.” It is true, of course, that every organization is unique in many ways. It is also true that there are universals. In certain fundamental ways, every organization is the same. An organization is a group of people with a function to perform. Its members are in various relationships with one another (both formal and informal). The organization will perform its function or not to the degree that those relationships work or don’t work. So, whether your organization’s function is unloading bauxite from huge ships, developing web pages, or serving fancy coffee, the leader’s job is to develop and nurture those relationships. At the risk of stretching this metaphor to its limits and beyond, here are some gardening parallels for organizational leaders (gardeners) and some ideas on how your leadership training might embrace them.
• Have an objective in mind. The gardener must decide if he or she wants to add a little color to the landscape, provide a few fresh items to supplement her diet, reduce the amount of money spent at the grocery store, or create a place for the dog to “run.” For organizational leaders, these objectives are sometimes defined by a corporate entity. At other times, the leader must decide on the purpose and objectives of the organization. Is it to make a profit? Fill a consumer need? Fund your retirement? Meet some societal need? Or, some combination of these? Whatever the objectives, having some clarity on them and being able to communicate these objectives to the team members is crucially important in every organization. Effective leadership training can do much to help participants clarify their mission and objectives.
• Develop a plan. Good gardeners plan out how much of the yard will be devoted to vegetables, to flowers, to trees. They design the garden with an eye to how much shade is needed, how much sun, what kind of borders are desirable, how long it will take for the garden to take shape, how much water and food will be required to maintain it, etc. Organizational leaders should do much the same. They should plan how much product needs to be manufactured, how many kinds of services will be offered, how many people with what kind of expertise are needed, how much it will cost and how they will get the money to have a successful start up. The same is true for organizational change. Who needs to be involved? How will they measure success? How long will it take to produce results? What kind of skills do they need?
• Choose appropriate plants. The gardener must choose the kinds of plants that are suitable for the climate, kind of soil, local restrictions, and so forth. The organizational leader needs to recruit the right people for the job. He or she must identify internal team members who can help the organization meet its goals, champion the change effort, facilitate the teams, coach the leaders and so on.
• Prepare the soil. The ground needs to be turned, enriched, fed, mulched and, if you are in the desert, an irrigation system installed. The organizational leader needs to assess interest, communicate his or her passion for the product or the change, determine how to meet the needs of those who raise objections, and create systems to manage the 
process. The leader needs to engage the support of key organizational influencers and create a realistic budget. Up front leadership training can address these issues.
• Plant with care. Now the garden is ready for the plants. The good gardener will choose the plants with care and plant according to the instructions. The more carefully he or she does the planting, the better the outcome. If too many seeds a planted or too few, or too deep or too shallow, or planted at the wrong time, the yield will be disappointing. The same is true for organizational change. Try to go too fast, or push too hard, or skimp on training and coaching and the results will be disappointing. Many a half-hearted effort has been abandoned as a “bad” idea when the issue was really poor implementation. We have had the know-how to create effective organizational change for a long time. Unfortunately, we often ignore the existing body of knowledge and have poor results.
• Fertilize. Most gardens don’t grow on their own. In the desert, many people think that the low water use landscapes require less maintenance than more traditional turf lawns. Not so. Cactus, Aloe, Lantana, and Brittle Bush need just as much shaping, trimming, and attention as Daisies and Periwinkle. The desert gardener also has to be careful with water. Many desert landscapes flounder because of too much water and all plants need nourishment. All organizational change programs need maintenance. If the leader doesn’t continue to respond to the needs or organizational teams, or stops listening to team members, providing new learning opportunities, or celebrating successes, the process will wither and fail to produce effective organizational goals. Every leadership training program should stress the importance of continuing enrichment of the change process.
• Irrigate. Too soggy or too dry and the garden dies. Too much supervision or too little attention will cause the change process to suffocate or become unruly and wild. The leader needs to “stick his finger in the dirt” from time to time to see if the process needs more water but not pull the change process (plant) up to look at its roots and see if is growing. The leader needs to be available, committed, and ready to shoo the rabbits and deer away but not try to be everything to everyone in the organization. Good leadership training will help leaders clarify who owns the problems and how to nurture teams and team members so that they can learn to accept more and more responsibility for solving problems.
• Weed. Too many extraneous plants (A weed is a plant growing in a spot where you don’t want it.) will cause the wanted plants to suffer. Too many restrictions, rules, conditions, and boundaries will do the same thing to a start up or a change process. This idea is sometimes interpreted to mean getting rid of people. Leaders must, of course, sometimes fire people. But more importantly, weeding means getting rid of those practices and policies that get in the way of success. Few organizations have no obsolete rules that can hinder progress. It is always prudent to examine the rulebook and see if some of the most counterproductive regulations can be eliminated.
• Prune. Some branches just don’t produce or are unhealthy. Blossoms die off and should be “dead-headed.” The same is true of the tasks in any organization. Just as the rules sometimes become outdated, the tasks themselves may change as new ideas are implemented. Are there reports, charts, meetings, and phone calls that no longer serve a purpose? Organizational leaders should examine them and eliminate those that no longer help. This is also often a useful exercise for your leadership training workshops.
• Harvest. If the gardener does all of these things well, she or he will then have an opportunity to enjoy the fruits of the effort. A beautiful flower garden or a tasty salad awaits. The same is true for the organization. If the leader has done all the things necessary, the organization will benefit and a celebration will be in order. Take a breath and then do it all over again.
While this may be a somewhat overwrought metaphor, the idea is an important one. It is easy to underestimate how much time and effort it takes to be an effective leader, especially when trying to implement change in the organization. Leadership training, when planned and executed well, can do much to prevent many of the oft-repeated errors we see in corporations. American corporations have made many attempts to implement organizational change with very mixed results. Most business experts would agree that most of these efforts have failed or, at best, produced far less than hoped for or expected. Seldom is the concept to blame. The fault is almost always in the execution. Poor listening, failure to follow through on team member suggestions, too much pressure to hurry up, intolerance for new ideas, and so on are the most frequent culprits. Ironically, these are the least expensive things. Corporate leaders are often willing to spend more money but unwilling to make important changes in their own behavior when that is what is most needed. These kinds of behavioral changes can be taught in leadership training but the lessons should be followed with good facilitation and coaching. It is so easy to forget what you have learned and go back to your old habits when the day-to-day pressure is on.
So plant that garden but tend it carefully every day and don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.