Got any peas in your garden?

While driving last week, a thought entered my mind. Employees are like vegetables growing in a garden.

Now before you think I’ve lost my mind, give me a minute to explain. They’re in the same environment, but some of them don’t reach their full potential. Why is that? Let me share a short story with you.

For as long as I can remember, my grandma had a green thumb. She had the most beautiful garden and took so much pride in caring for it! I always wanted to grow a garden like she did, but I was overwhelmed when starting. I decided that my first attempt would be a container garden. How hard could that be, right? I didn’t realize I planted cherry tomatoes and was disappointed with the result. The next time I planted tomatoes, I tried to learn from my mistake. I closely read the card to make sure I bought large tomatoes, but I ultimately killed them in the container by over-fertilizing them. I assumed I didn’t inherit my grandma’s green thumb and almost gave up on my gardening dream.

However, I gave it one more attempt during 2020. Since the pandemic required us to spend more time at home, I researched gardening and talked with a friend. She gave me seeds and taught me how to grow seedlings and transplant them. I skipped the containers this time and tried a raised bed. My family put a lot of work into our little garden, and we had a little bit of success! While we completely failed with some vegetables, we still enjoyed our very small bounty so much!

So how does this relate to human resources and leadership? Your organization is the garden, and your employees are the vegetable plants. Is your garden a container, raised bed, or tilled ground? Are your vegetables created to grow where you planted them? Do you see where I’m going with this?

Let’s start with my peas. In 2020, I planted them as tiny seeds in starter cells with potting soil. It was so exciting to watch them sprout! I then transplanted them into the ground and noticed they were struggling. However, I didn’t spend a minute researching why they weren’t growing. I took care of them the same way I took care of my zucchini, tomatoes, red peppers, and green beans.

Do you know what happened? They died.

Did I transplant them too soon? Should I have planted them in a different area of my garden? Did they need more or less sunlight? I don’t know because I blamed the peas. My other vegetables were growing, so there must have been something wrong with the peas. In hindsight, I failed the peas. I made no effort whatsoever to try anything different.

Have you lost any peas in your garden? Think about the last time you were excited during interviews. You hired employees, planted them in your organization, and then nothing happened. Did they leave after a short time? Did they have performance issues? How could this plant just shrivel up and die? Have you wondered if you could have done something differently? Did you give them proper training? Did you hire them for the correct position or the one that needed to be filled? Did they have good leadership, or were they micromanaged? Were your leaders like inexperienced gardeners that needed to learn more about gardening?

I challenge you to spend some time thinking about the peas in your garden. I hope the next time you plant them, you’ll take a different approach and get better results.

If you like this post, I’ll continue sharing what I’ve learned from the other vegetables planted in my garden.

Categories: : Retention