There Are No Bad Seeds, Only Bad Gardens

I've spent the last few evenings preparing my garden for planting seeds. In doing so, I've taken care to till the dirt, add a fresh layer of topsoil, ensure the drip line is working appropriately, and remove any weeds, rocks, and debris from the garden bed. I'm investing time in preparing my garden because once I've planted seeds, there is nothing I can do to make those seeds grow. I can water them regularly, make sure my garden receives direct sunlight, intermittently remove any unwanted growth, etc. But I cannot make the seeds in my garden grow. The power to grow is inherent in the seeds. So I, as the gardener, am relegated to creating the optimal environment and conditions for promoting seed growth.

Our teams are like my garden. Our teammates are akin to seeds. As leaders, we are gardeners. We are restricted to designing environments and conditions conducive to human growth, no matter our leadership mastery. As with seeds, the power to grow is innate in the people we are entrusted to lead.

I'm reminded of this quote by Simon Sinek: "There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it, or you can inspire it."

The way we inspire our teammates' growth is with trust.

What is trust? Where does it come from? And why does it matter?

As with love, trust can be described as something you feel when you have it. It's an emotion. In First Things First, Stephen Covey defines trust as "the glue of life." He explains that "It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. . .the foundational principle that holds all relationships."

In a 2019 Forbes article, Dana Brownlee accentuates the vital role of trust, writing, "Teams can’t reach the highest levels of productivity and effectiveness without high levels of trust – they just can’t."

To belabor the point, I'll share one of my favorite quotes from The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything: "The first job of a leader—at work or at home—is to inspire trust. It’s to bring out the best in people by entrusting them with meaningful stewardships, and to create an environment in which high-trust interaction inspires creativity and possibility."

Notice that it's not a leader's job to demand trust, expect trust, or withhold trust until it is earned. The leader's job is to inspire trust by creating an environment through interactions. The keystone interaction in such an environment is the leader accepting the risk of extending trust first.

Three ways we can do this include communicating our beliefs, demonstrating vulnerability, and exhibiting trustworthiness.

Communicating Our Beliefs

The chances are high that you've experienced imposter syndrome at one time or another. This is the belief that you are unworthy of your success. You're not actually good at your job. You just got lucky. There are strategies for thriving despite imposter syndrome. And leaders can hedge its spiraling effects by communicating that we believe in a person's potential and capacity to succeed and, perhaps more importantly, that we hired, assigned, or promoted them knowing that they are, and will continue to be, a work in progress, just like we are as leaders. Not only will creating this shared understanding with our teammates galvanize their desire to do their best work, but it also builds psychological safety, which Google found to be the number one factor for team success.

Demonstrating Vulnerability

As a leader in my organization, I've worked with numerous colleagues with diverse backgrounds and ideas. I've noticed that most deeply engage with their work and derive real purpose. Some, however, fail to get their feet under them and generate positive forward momentum. What distinguishes these two groups is the willingness to ask questions. Those who approach their job, regardless of competence or expertise, with a growth orientation are more tolerant of the potential consequences of admitting unfamiliarity or incompetence with a task or concept on their reputation. They understand that learning leads to self-efficacy, greater clarity, and higher achievement. Those who can't let go of their ego don't. When a leader is willing to demonstrate vulnerability first, it normalizes that not being the most intelligent person in the room is okay.

Additionally, it communicates the value and priority of acknowledging areas of weakness as opportunities for improvement. In Drive, Daniel Pink highlights the importance of having opportunities to pursue mastery, explaining that "the urge to get better and better at something that matters" motivates us. As leaders, we must set that standard.

Exhibiting Trustworthiness

Finally, if we want to create a trusting environment to inspire growth in our teammates, we need to show others that we can be trusted too. This doesn't require grand public gestures. Instead, it occurs when we accept responsibility for an assignment and do it. We also exhibit trustworthiness when we hold ourselves accountable to the same standards we expect of our teammates as a minimum. As an example, the Office of Innovation at my company is working to build a habit of daily self-reflection. A simple survey scaffolds this new system that individuals are asked to respond to towards the end of each workday. As a leader, the most important thing I can do to instill trust in my teammates that I am aligned with this initiative isn't to proselytize the importance of self-reflection. It's to pause for a few minutes each day to ponder and respond to the survey. Trustworthiness isn't exhibited through words. It's shown through behaviors.

Returning to my garden, there is no guarantee that my efforts will yield a bountiful harvest—weather changes, droughts happen, and mistakes are made in learning how to tend a garden. We can't control all the variables that affect a seed's growth ability. We can do our best to create the most significant opportunity for those seeds to grow. We do it by designing the environment and conditions within our control. That includes trust-promoting interactions. Whether we are talking about growing gardens or growing people, the same principle applies. There are no bad seeds, only bad gardens.