Leadership Notes -- Thoughts on Leading People and Making a Difference in Organizations

Word count this issue: 316 

Estimated reading time:  2:30 minutes

I heard a great phrase in a conference call with a client the other day. “Talent is a garden.” I wonder, what does that phrase mean to you?

Here’s where I went with it. Gardens are places of growth and new life. There are new plants and old plants, and some in between. There are roots  and leaves, and all of them need soil to grow. There are good bugs and bad bugs, and there are even weeds that sometimes get in, and have to be pulled. There are seeds that fall and germinate, and others that fly off into the wind. And the best gardens are tended and cared for.

The talent garden in your organization is similar. It should be a place of growth and new life. You need to mix and match old and young, wise and excited. You need traditions that root you. You need new ideas, like new leaves stretching for new opportunities. You need lived values that are the soil in which the garden grows. There are systems and tech that support and can, like some bugs, wreak havoc. Sometimes, people who do not fit, people with different agendas get in, and while sometimes, like weeds, they can be attractive in their own right, they are not what the garden needs at this point. The new ideas and possibilities, the seeds that get generated sometimes work in our garden, and sometimes they need to move to other gardens to flourish there. And your garden does not just happen; forethought, imagination and vision are required to create the best gardens.

So what do you imagine your talent garden needs to look like in 5 years and what are you doing right now to begin to create that garden?