Growing Weeders Into Leaders

 

Issue No. 371 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 17, 2017) will surprise you! The director of landscape services at Ole Miss reveals proven principles from his unique leadership development program, Landscape University. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Growing Weeders Into Leaders OK…this is big. Here’s a leader who understands the importance of weekly staff meetings—but has reduced his own talking time in meetings down to five percent. Incredible! Here are 10 reasons you’ll want to read Growing Weeders Into Leaders: Leadership Lessons from the Ground Level, by Jeff McManus. #10. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. If you’ve always intoned the cliché—“You never have a second chance to make a first impression”—but never figured out how to live it out, this quick-reading 129-page book shows you how. The author is the director of landscape services at Ole Miss where the University of Mississippi Rebels football team, by the way, beat Vanderbilt 57-35 last Saturday at home. Imagine hosting 64,000 people in your backyard! #9. WEEDING BY EXAMPLE. If your organization has grass (and/or weeds), trees, a front door, or a large campus (think camps, schools, churches, headquarters, or your reception desk), this is a must-read.When McManus accepted the job at Ole Miss, he asked for a direct reporting relationship to then Chancellor Robert C. Khayat, who said his mother mentored him to “make a place look loved.” The chancellor often stopped on a walk across campus to pull a weed or two—“weeding by example,” he labeled his leadership style. #8. LEAD YOURSELF FIRST. The big idea of this book—whatever department or niche you lead, you can grow leaders. I was skeptical. Do the men and women on the lawn mowers really aspire to leadership? McManus is brilliant. Leadership, he says, is learning how to lead yourself first. So he created Landscape University for the people in his landscape services department. (Did I mention brilliant?) #7. WHAT’S WORSE? PowerPoint-worthy quotes on almost every page will juice your coaching competencies, like this one from John Maxwell: “What’s worse than training your people and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.” #6. ICONIC PHOTO AREAS. He quotes Ansel Adams, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” McManus brilliantly (there’s that word again) notes the importance of creating iconic photo settings. “Always create areas where people want to take photos. People appreciate those unique spaces, and they want to take that memory home with them.” He adds, “In marketing terms, creating iconic photo areas helps reinforce the brand to consumers.” (It reminded me of Aristotle’s observation, “The soul never thinks without a picture.”) #5. TRANSPARENT. If you’ve ever inherited a dysfunctional department or organization (or likely will someday), you’ll learn how Jeff McManus discerned next steps (with few options and fewer funds). And wow…is he transparent describing his own leadership failures and foibles. The first chapter is powerful. #4. GUT CHECK. Are you growing your people? McManus quotes Jack Welch, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” #3. TRAINING TOURS. The author knows that training happens in those teachable moments along the journey—not always in the classroom, so he leads his team on tours to other SEC campuses. Noting some embarrassing first impressions on one (unnamed) campus, McManus commented, “That one four-hour tour was worth 100 hours of training.” #2. SECRET SAUCE. “Growing weeders into leaders” is the secret sauce that has garnered numerous “most beautiful campus awards” for Ole Miss. Not easy on a 1,000-acre campus where the grass grows 24/7. Learn how they created a culture of excellence. #1. APPENDIX OF LEADERS. Show me another book that features short bios of five team members/leaders in the appendix. Jeff McManus practices what he preaches—and his leadership lessons from the ground level meant that he didn’t hog the book to himself, but he highlighted the work of five key leaders, by name, also. Brilliant! BONUS REASON #11: About those weekly meetings, McManus writes, “The more people speak, the more they feel ownership and build their leadership skills. I’m amazed at how over time we changed the tone of our meetings to be more engaging. My speaking part in meetings these days is down to five percent.” Read the section, “Monday Morning Meeting,” to learn more about the one-page meeting agenda which also includes space for a team member’s personal goals. Brilliant! To order from Amazon, click on the title for Growing Weeders Into Leaders: Leadership Lessons from the Ground Level, by Jeff McManus.  Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Jeff McManus said he listened to the audio book, It’s Your Ship, by Capt. D. Michael Abrashoff, and immediately began having one-on-one meetings with his direct reports. How often has a book you’ve read (or listened to) caused you to do something new or innovative? 2) In a nod to the Hoopla! Bucket, McManus quotes Tom Peters: “Celebrate what you want to see more of.” What does your department or organization celebrate?   It's OK to Skip Our Next Meeting! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook Jeff McManus, author of Growing Weeders Into Leaders, wanted input from his team when writing their “Landscape Creed”—but added a nice twist to the obligatory meetings syndrome. “One wintry day, we scheduled a 60-minute meeting of the entire staff to walk through the process of developing our very own Landscape Creed.” His goal was “to let everyone participate in some way,” so McManus asked team members to invest just one hour. But then this brilliant left turn: “While everyone had a voice at the first meeting, the next meeting was set up as voluntary.” The most interested came—and the creed was written with maximum ownership.  For more on crafting your team’s core values, order the just-published resource Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates, and Tips From John Pearson (A Pearpod Resource). Created by John Pearson, it also includes color commentary by Jason Pearson. And for more on the Culture Bucket, visit this webpage. And if you have not read the Buckets book, click below to order from Amazon. MORE STUFF! • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s 2017 series on Max De Pree's book, Called to Serve. Read the 30th blog, "No Board Detail Is Too Small."  This post also includes an index (and links) to all 30 blogs in the series.