Yesterday was the nicest day in Maryland. I gave myself to the yard and outdoors. Hard lessons are learned in the garden—but transferrable ones.
With spring around the corner, there’s plenty to prepare. Also a few ways to hamper growth.
Depending on your type of hydrangea, for example, pruning early may remove buds. Some flowers form on old wood the previous year.
Prune too much of any plant, you may kill it. The same could be said for business.
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The plant is a system, and its survival is largely dependent on a thriving ecology.
The plant has contingencies and alternatives. If the soil’s dry, water can be absorbed elsewhere, or go dormant. There’s shifting, load-balancing.
Roots can grow from most parts. But if you flood the roots, it could starve of nitrogen. Move locations, change or fail to respond to the environment, you may find major plant loss. If you have dead parts, you pare back to eliminate waste.
Keeping plants happy means finding good fit. That takes effort and thoughtful management.
That model holds true with business. Poor fit demands a change somewhere, or face decline. Overextension or loss of quality demands reduction.
But cut back too much of your operations or revenue stream and you can’t support growth.
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Recently, I noticed a change in direction for a past client.
They were finding marginal profits on secondary offerings they no longer cared to support. Their reaction was to sunset them, forgo the EOL altogether.
I warned stakeholders specifically about cutting that part of their business. I shared innovative solutions to recapture value that aligned with their goals.
They told me it wasn’t theirs to win and they knew better. What did they know?
A year later, they’re trying to regrow that business from zero…again.
Such is the problem of the unseasoned gardener, to prune haphazardly—one that cost millions.
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Regardless of what you’re trying to grow, knowing the system and the mechanisms for growth are primary.
Without dishing the dirt, any ‘gardening’ lessons for a changing season?
#productmanagement #businessadvice #gardeningtips
