I have been visiting Perth on a monthly basis to deliver my first Budding Leaders Program and have had the chance to visit some of my favourite gardens including the wonderful Kings Park. I recently found myself standing next to a magnificent specimen of a plant and immediately identified it by the name I have [...]

Tags: Employee Communication, Leadership and management, Organisational culture, Political correctness, Workplace gardening, www.letsgrow.com.au

What do real estate, employee engagement and gardening have in common? Success is all about position, position, position! Columnist Michael McCoy from Gardening Australia Magazine explored the issue of position in one of his recent articles in reference to a plant he has, a Helleborous called “Mrs Betty Ranicar”, that had issues because it was [...]

Tags: Career path, employee engagement, Karen Schmidt, Leadership and gardening, Leadership and management

Serious gardeners love trying to improve on nature. Some spend a lifetime developing new varieties of their favourite plant, hoping to add in something they perceive nature has left out (and potentially be recognised for their achievement). For example, rose breeders are obsessed with breeding plants that have more flowers, bigger flowers or flowers with [...]

Tags: employee engagement, Karen Schmidt, Leadership and gardening, Leadership skills, Leading is like gardening, Working with strengths, Workplace gardening, www.letsgrow.com.au

Literature is full of gardeners and gardening references. One example is “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen. She wrote of characters who change their gardens for the sake of fashion and derided them as “nouveaux riche”.  This is a term that has become associated with a class of people most of us find irritating and trivial. [...]

Tags: Change management, employee engagement, engagement, inconsistent leadership, Leadership and gardening, Leadership and management, Leadership skills, Leading is like gardening, Makeover

Gardeners have varying degrees of success in their efforts. Sometimes they are able to get a plant to stay alive and grow leaves but are never able to get it to reach it’s full potential which could be to produce flowers or fruit. I have personally experienced this situation and it can be frustrating to [...]

Tags: employee engagement, Karen Schmidt, Leadership and gardening, Leadership and management, Leadership skills, Leading is like gardening, Management versus leadership, www.letsgrow.com.au