Guest Post: How to create respectful tension for results

According to Landscape Management, there is a certain type of constructive tension that can be healthy for a business. This "respectful tension" stretches people to perform at levels they never thought were possible.



How do words like, conflict, confrontation, accountability, debate and tension make you feel?

Uncomfortable? Sure! I don’t blame you. Nobody enjoys confrontation. If there’s someone who does, I would avoid him at all costs. On the other hand, I’d like to suggest there’s is a certain type of constructive tension that’s healthy in business. I call this “respectful tension.”

One of the definitions of tension is, “To apply a force to something that tends to stretch it.” Think about a rubber band between your thumb and finger. The harder you stretch it the further you can shoot it.

I must confess that I’m not afraid of the word tension. I’ve earnestly worked and preached the benefits of this type of constructive tension for the growth of a business. I’ve learned through the years that for any individual, team or organization to reach its full potential, it has to be stretched and challenged continuously to set and achieve lofty goals. I’ve also learned that leaders must understand and accept this responsibility or it won’t happen.

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LM150 Lessons Learned: Carol King

When it comes to business growth, would you do it all over again if you had the chance? Would you know where you went wrong the first time and what needed to change? With information from those who have gone before, it's easier to plan your steps for the future. 

Landscape Management Magazine

Hindsight is 20/20, and I’m always brighter after the fact.

As we’ve morphed into a $9 million to $10 million company, we compete on the commercial maintenance side against large, national and regional companies who sell contracts to hotel chains, restaurant chains and large property management groups. It’s dawned on me we can’t work in certain areas because they’re tied up with negotiated relationships. It takes a certain market segment away from you.

CarolKingConsequently, if we had it to do over again, we might have developed a more niche-related company to have a smaller footprint and closer control. It would have been years ago, probably in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Companies that accomplish this increase their margins and retain their customers better because of the relationship factor. The one thing the national companies may not be able to do, versus a family business or one-market business, is be close to customers, react quicker to their needs and maintain a relationship-based business.

For instance, homeowner associations (HOAs), condominiums and multi-housing sites for the residential side are not prone to being rolled up by national companies because they’re all locally controlled.

There are opportunities to target a specific market. Spend your marketing dollars in that one area and become a preferred provider or a boutique company. You’ve just got to find the one you’re comfortable with. It always has to come back to who and what you want to be and where you want to head. You need to make these decisions when you’re in the $1 million to $2 million revenue point.

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6 Steps to Lowering Worker Comp Costs

Landscape Worker at Machu Picchu by David Berkowitz via flickr.com 

Even very small operations need to learn the rules behind workers compensation. Every state is different, but there are common sense rules any business ought to follow. Learn more in the article excerpted below from GreenIndustryPros.com. 

For landscapers all over the United States, the premium of workers’ compensation insurance is a large expense that’s often required by state laws. In other words, there’s not much you can do about it. Or is there?

Understand your state’s laws

Not every state requires businesses to provide workers’ comp. In fact, most states only require businesses to provide it when they have more than three employees.

Even when not required by law, offering workers’ comp is still beneficial for landscapers to avoid prosecution from injured employees who waive their rights to file damage lawsuits against the employer when receiving workers’ comp benefits.

The premium for workers’ compensation insurance is designed to provide sufficient funds to not only pay for benefits to the injured employees, but also to operate the system that delivers those benefits. It is a pre-funded insurance system, which means that premiums are determined before the policies are issued, and that premiums are intended to meet all future claim payments made under those policies.

Read the full article on GreenIndustryPros.com. 

Get the Best from Managers

This is an excerpt from an article written by Jeff Harkness in Landscape Management.

I’ve had the recent pleasure of managing a client’s account management team for the last six months. I love it, but managing people who are in front of your customer is tough. It takes hard work and patience. The good news is this skill can be learned and refined with experience, but there’s a shortage of good management talent operating in this industry. You have to get this right. Your growth and sanity depend on it!

The best companies are making investments in finding, training, motivating and rewarding their talent. This leads to retention and stability. Profits follow. Sounds easy, right? If you’re frustrated and challenged by your team’s results, consider the following.

Personality profiles. Human behavior is predictable and job descriptions require certain skill sets within your organizational structure. Profiles can be used to gain insight as to how a particular individual works and interacts with others, in their personal life or working life.DISC, Myers-Briggs or Wonderlic are few good providers to check out as a measuring stick for your team. Include yourself. Owners create problems, too! This screening process is a must and you need to make it part of a strategic planning meeting and/or your hiring process. In the classic read Good to Great author Jim Collins talks about a simple question “great” companies ask themselves: “Do I have the right people on the bus? Are they sitting in the right seat?” Ask this question of your organization on a regular basis.

To read the full article, visit Landscape Management.