In my recent interview with J.T. Price, CEO of Landscape Workshop, on The Grow Show, he shared so much great information about managing and leading teams and the intentionality they've put behind their company culture at Landscape Workshop. You can listen to all that he has to say here, but he made one point in particular that I think needs to be really hit home: the impact of a poor performer on an organization goes so far beyond just their personal performance. 

"You ask a crew who's the person they hate on the crew," he said, "It's the guy who isn't trying hard and who's making all of them do that person's job." 

This is something that is so important for teams to understand: the best workers want to work with other great workers. It's easy to frustrate your top team members by making them work with people who don't pull their weight. 

So how do we fix this? We start by looking in the mirror: what are we doing or not doing as leaders that is creating this situation? We need to make sure that we:

1. Set clear expectations for our teams, so that everyone knows what their role is and what's expected of them. 

2. Provide training and guidance, so that team members have the skills they need to be capable of being top performers. 

3. Give our teams reasons to want to be top performers. Incentive programs, career paths, even decisions on who gets overtime hours all should be based on facts and data. 

Everyone wants to have a team of top performers, and there are things we need to do as leaders in organizations to ensure that our companies are places that create and retain top performers. It's very easy to accidentally incentivize bad behavior if your people strategy isn't carefully thought out. 

I'm so excited that J.T. and his team at Landscape Workshop are opening up their facility to us at the Field Trip we'll host with NALP on June 11-12. They've agreed to share so much information on how they operate (check out the agenda here), and to go into detail on how they've created a company culture that rewards performance. There will be so much for any company to take away from this talented leadership team, if you're looking to grow in 2024 make sure you're signed up to join us. 

I hope to see you there next month!

Marty Grunder
Founder & CEO
The Grow Group & Grunder Landscaping Co.