continued from previous page...
Working In A Vineyard
And in vineyards as well as in organizations, while one person has to be in charge, the entire operation is run best for all involved if there are advisers — each an expert in his or her field of endeavor such as viticulture, marketing, etc. — to ensure that the manager has the latest and best advice…and sometimes oversight. In this case I need to clear expenditures with my oversight committee of one but even so I know that I not only have to rationalize my expenses to myself but also to my wife and that oversight, limited as it is, helps us all. Accountability is the key to the maintenance of a good vineyard…and trust.
So it is with organizations ... when everybody in the organization is saying the same thing, then there's only one person in that organization doing the thinking…and we all know that no one person has all of the solutions. When only one person is running the show, accountability disappears and when accountability goes, so does the trust. The best ideas and approaches come out when there is a free exchange of ideas and concepts and the original approach or solution is modified by the advice and counsel of many members…the use of a combative, argumentative, and professional executive board that demands and gets accountability is the desired approach. And boards need to be changed too, as well as leaders. For out of these new approaches will come conditions ideal for the growing of a much better and sweeter fruit.
It is interesting, too, to note that flashiness does not always mean quality production. Many times I’ve encountered trailers with bountiful foliage only to find zilch in terms of grapes. Sometimes there are grapes present but 99 out of 100 times there is little to show for all of the beautiful leaves and gracefulness of the vine. It seems that the less flamboyant trailers are better producers than their more noticeable neighbors on the vine.
So it is with organizations…most of the time the organization is carried along by the quiet worker bees rather than those who talk a lot and promise much but produce little. As with vines, there are exceptions but in the majority of cases the loudest talkers are the least producers…however, on the down side and compounding the problem for the leaders within an organization, it is the loud talkers and the more flamboyant ones who get the notoriety in lieu of the workers. Main point to keep in mind is to look for the fruits of their effort—talk only produces hot air!
And I find that to rely on one major stem to produce or support the new vines and stems is courting disaster. There needs to be a multiplicity of proven resources so that if a virus or a blight — or merely old age — strikes one stem, there are others already in place and functioning to take over. In fact, it is a wise investment to be grooming new healthy vines and encouraging them to grow and to bear fruit while the original stem is still functioning rather than depending on just that one source. There is no telling when that original stem may need to be replaced because it is no longer responsive to fertilizers or to changes coming to the vineyard.
So it is with organizations ... as we saw at the last Chapter meeting there were many new ideas and approaches tossed around and the group left the meeting feeling energized and fully aware that this Chapter is their Chapter, not someone else's and since it is their Chapter for it to succeed, they — as Chapter members—had to participate and get involved…there were plenty of new "leadership stems" that emerged from those discussions.
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Updated: 05/08/04
