Summer's Lease

I see that my last blog celebrated the arrival of summer. Well, as the Bard said, 'summer's lease hath all too short a date'. The main comfort to be gained from the grey skies and rain is that flowers tend to last longer and there isn't a need to water the garden.

While sitting in the garden during the brief summer interlude, it occurred to me that one of the things which gardeners experience is seasonality. In fact, it's something that gardeners, like farmers, can't escape from. It also means that gardening involves looking back and evaluating performance in the current season as it passes and looking forward to planning and preparing for the seasons to come. Given that so much everyday life has been isolated from seasonality -- most of all in the availability of all year round produce in the supermarket -- it's salutary to be reminded that ultimately everything that we eat and enjoy is seasonally determined.

This thought led me to ponder on seasonality in our sector, and on the ways that this affects managing. In the UK, the ELT sector is highly seasonal -- as is, coincidentally, the retail trade, where big players like John Lewis make their profits during the run up to Christmas. Consequently, planning has to be seasonal, with a lot of forward planning to ensure that when the customers arrive, everything is in place to receive them and provide a teaching, learning and social experience which will not only meet, but exceed their expectations.

With this in mind, I looked to the 'cash cows' in the garden. These are mostly the hardy geraniums which really are very hardy. But even hardy plants need some care, including staking and watering when the weather is hot and dry. Likewise, the cash cows that are the core of any ELT operation need care and maintenance. Letting such stalwarts take care of themselves is a big mistake, but one that is easy to make if management attention and priorities are diverted to launching new products.

So, thinking green thoughts in a green shade has a tendency to lead to management thoughts as well. Which leads to another thought: so often the people I work with on management courses complain of the lack of time and opportunity, thanks to day to day operational pressures, to think the kind of management green thoughts that are vital if long term strategic planning isn't to be ignored. Just as the gardener has to take the long view of cultivation, so too the manager needs to -- and there should be 'space', both physical and metaphorical, where managers can think such thoughts. In other words, managers need a 'garden' to which they can retreat, away from the daily pressures of weeding, pruning and watering the organizational plants for which they are responsible so that they can take a longer view of managing their garden for seasons to come.