This past weekend brought a welcome break in our weather. The summer was sweltering, which made it challenging to do much work outside. Since we had some fall-like weather, I decided to get out in the yard and finish a project that I had started over a year earlier.
Our daughter had something unique piled up in her garage. The back left corner of it was filled with landscape pavers. The stack was giant not only because they were a foot wide each, they also rose four feet above the floor. She was barely able to get her car in the garage without getting too close to the sprawling mass. The person who had owned the house two owners before her had used them all over the yard. Now they were just sitting there gathering spiderwebs and grime.
I asked her if I could take them to our house and use them to edge our beds. She thought that would be a great use of them, and told me she’d bring a load back home the next time she visited. When she came a few weeks later, I was concerned because the weight of the pavers really showed in the back of her SUV. Her wheels were struggling because she tried to bring so many. The repurposing of the pavers was wonderful. We had wanted to give the beds in the back and right side of our house more definition.
We used all of the pavers she brought in the first trip quickly. We only had enough to do the bed in the backyard that bordered our back patio. We thought we would have had more than enough to finish everything. I suggested we measure the next bed, and told her that I’d drive up to get the next load because my car was older. With everyone’s schedule in our two families, more time passed before I could get more pavers. I stacked them on my front patio to be used for the side yard.
The seasons changed, and I couldn’t get out to create the border I had wanted to finish quickly. That brings us back to this weekend. With a gap in time and nothing on my schedule, it was overdue to finish the landscape border. It took all afternoon, but it was worth it !! I had to work the edge to make sure the grass was back far enough to set the pavers in place. I added topsoil under each paver to make sure they would be level as I laid them end to end. Having a dedicated space for our flowers and shrubs to thrive was just what I was hoping for.
Borders remind me of how we should look at the roles and responsibilities we have for employees within our companies. I believe in this approach versus the traditional job descriptions we’ve used for decades. Most job descriptions are nothing more than a list of tasks we develop to justify the jobs people fill. They rarely describe what and how people truly do their daily work.
Writing something that provides people with parameters for them to work is essential. If people have enough room to grow, develop, and perform, then they’ll be able to thrive, just like our plants. Isn’t that better? If people had the latitude to stretch, use their strengths, and be creative in a broader system and environment, think how much better our companies would be.
This week, take a lesson from my landscaping adventure. Get rid of the roots and uneven ground your people have been given with lists of tasks only meant to confine. Instead, level things out and give them a border that allows them to be the talented people they’ve always been !!
