Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
many important decisions to make when developing the organization's formal reporting
relationships. Creating a structure that is fl exible, responsive to the marketplace, affords
employees growth opportunities, and manages accountability and responsibility, is a major
challenge. Leadership is critical to business success as managers seek to motivate and
manage human resources to maximize productivity. Managing people successfully requires
more than a charismatic personality; it requires an understanding of the basic concepts of
supervision and leadership. We will explore these issues in this chapter, and then turn our
attention to the more focused area of personnel management in
Chapter 17
.
GreenThumb, Inc.: managing people in a growing business
Marie and Bob Jordan founded GreenThumb, Inc. six years ago. Capitalizing on Marie's
experience in managing a retail lawn and garden center, Bob's experiences in a commercial
greenhouse, and some funds from their extended family, Marie and Bob set out to make their
dream a reality. Beginning modestly with a small greenhouse and an attached lawn and
garden shop, they quickly established their business in the community. Marie's creative ads
in the local newspaper, her fl air for creative in-store displays and landscape ideas, and her
outgoing personality really drove the sales and marketing side of the business. Bob's natural
talent with growing plants and his previous experience as a fi eld supervisor for a large cor-
porate greenhouse provided a steady supply of quality bedding plants and fl owers for sale in
the store.
At fi rst, business was simple. During the fi rst two years, Marie and Bob did just about
everything themselves, fi lling in labor needs with the part-time help of a retired hobby gar-
dener and several high school students. Things were going so well that in the third year they
decided to purchase six adjoining acres and begin growing some of their own nursery stock.
By the end of their third year, the business was growing so rapidly that Marie and Bob had
to begin adding full-time help—they just could not take the long hours required to handle all
the work that the expanded business required. First, GreenThumb hired three managers: one
each for the nursery, the greenhouse, and the retail store. Several workers reported to each
of these managers, the exact number depending on the season. Bob acted as General Manager
and Marie assumed the role of Assistant General Manager. Marie handled everything when
Bob was away on buying trips and kept the topics and records. In addition, she kept her role
as chief salesperson and marketer for the growing company.
Adjusting to this expanded operation was a genuine struggle for both Marie and Bob. It
became harder and harder to stay in touch with the customers, and it had been so much fun
in the business initially. They seemed to spend their time doing more administrative things—
hiring people, meeting with the managers, working on the fi rm's fi nances. Less and less time
was spent in the greenhouses, or with customers. Yet the business was successful and profi ts
were good, so they continued to expand and grow.
In their fi fth year, things began to go wrong. By this time GreenThumb employed about
50 people during the peak season. Recently, a number of troubling problems had required a
lot of attention from Bob and Marie. Some of these problems included: inventory damage in
the cramped warehouse, high turnover among part-time help, and unexplained escalating
costs. Most serious of all was an increase in insect and disease problems in the nursery and
greenhouse. While none of these problems were huge, together they were most disturbing—
especially since they were leading to some dissatisfi ed customers, and lagging sales.
Both Marie and Bob felt they had lost touch with the business. Bob simply could not be
on top of the technical problems because he was tied up with management problems. In fact,
