Can you believe this is my 200th blog post! When I started this blog back in February 2010 with my first post “Team building is out, team growing is in”, little did I know what a significant impact it would have on my business. Three years and 200 posts later I am so glad I [...]

Tags: Karen Schmidt, Leadership and gardening, Leading is like gardening, Workplace gardening, www.letsgrow.com.au

Welcome to 2013! I have spent the last few weeks having a very relaxing time at home. When you travel so much for business as I do the last thing you want to do is go away over the holidays! A lot of my time has been spent relaxing on my balcony where I have [...]

Tags: Karen Schmidt, Leadership and gardening, Leadership and management, Leading is like gardening, learning and development, Workplace gardening, www.letsgrow.com.au

It is very easy as a leader, or a gardener, to get caught up in the details and forget what it is you are trying to achieve in the big picture. We can easily obsess about minor issues, like the weeding or pruning when, from a distance, everything looks fine. We just need to take [...]

Tags: Karen Schmidt, Leadership and management, Leadership skills, Workplace gardening, www.letsgrow.com.au

“Don’t be afraid to show your imperfections. It’s why we like real flowers that wilt rather than plastic flowers that never change.” This is a quote I read recently in a book by Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson called “Rework: change the way you work forever”. I would highly recommend it for anyone who [...]

Tags: employee engagement, fake leaders, Fierce leadership, inconsistent leadership

On the weekend I went to www.nscf.org.au but not for my usual volunteering activities. This time I went as a student attending one of their short courses. It was on small space container gardening. Here is a picture of one of the containers we planted. It’s designed to have plants cascading down the sides as [...]

Tags: Leadership and management, learning and development, www.nscf.org.au