My grandmother told me to never walk past a weed.
This is an important mindset.
If I have the mindset of never walking past a weed, then it really does bother me when I walk past one.
And when I walk past it a second time, I’ll be thinking “Yeah, I really got to pull that weed.”
And then the third time I might just drop what I’m doing, bend over and snatch that evil interloper right out of the soil.
Thus I will have rid my garden of a voracious, fast-growing, highly reproducible, allelopathic monster whose only goal in its too-long life is to eliminate all competition and dominate its surroundings.
That’s a joyful thing.
This is also a strong analogy.
It is an analogous, of course, to finding problems that are small (for now), and simply nipping them in the bud before they drive the good things out.
This applies to my life in general, and my workplace too.
Most often I refer to bad data — for example, in the CRM — as a crop of weeds. The instruction from my grandmother, of course, is to fix it the moment you come across it. It won’t take but a minute, and eventually you will have a clean CRM.
Bad data in the CRM? Fix it the moment you come across it. It won't take but a minute, and you'll love yourself later for the effort you gave today.
Does this apply elsewhere? Sure it does.
Unproductive processes. You may need to dig deeper here to root out the inefficient workflows and outdated practices that are draining your resources and slowing your progress. Do it. Where you find labor you will find inefficiency. Get out your shovel.
Information silos. Just as weeds block access to sunlight and nutrients, information silos block the free flow of knowledge across teams, leading to inefficiency and misalignment. Clear the path for better communication. You might need a new tool here, like Slack or Monday. If you are already using these tools, how can you use them better? What’s your ratio of DMs to public messages?
Counterproductive employees. Rip them out before their ideas & attitudes poison the very soil of your workplace. This one is a doozy, like finding Kudzu smothering your trees. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t deal with it. Take charge before the subversion takes root.
Weeding is gratifying, rewarding, and — yes — hard work.
Your knuckles will get dirty and you will have dirt under your fingernails and sweat on your brow. But when you look down to find your soil clear of choking nuisances, and you see that clear, black loam ready for the flowers to blossom, that’s a joyful thing.
So don’t walk past that weed any longer.
Pluck it, rake it, change it, fix it, now.
