Trees and Company Building

Yes, I know it’s an odd topic.  But I’m on vacation right now and so my BLOG posts are a bit infrequent and light hearted I confess!

I was wandering around our property this morning with an arborist, who’s trying to save a few of our birch trees from disease.  Based on his invoice, I’m thinking this might be a more lucrative profession!!!

As we moved from tree to tree, he carefully looked at the trunks and leaves for signs of stress and then offered up his words of advice for nurturing each one.

The list was extensive, and I’ve forgotten much of it, but it was the similarities to company building that I had the most fun with.

Maybe it’s just me and too much sun, but here they are:

1.  Trees focus on building roots for the first 3 years – it’s not until after that when they really take off.

2.  Cut off multiple “leaders” (the top branches), if they happen to appear or the other branches will try to grow behind both leaders and the tree will be stunted.  I thought you’d like this one J !!

3. Never plant a tree alone – it needs an ecosystem to survive.  The elements like wind, winters, etc. can be very hard for a tree to survive with the support of other trees around it.

4.  Pruning every once in a while makes the tree stronger.

5.  Trees die from the top down., not the bottom up.  Now that’s a powerful one for sure.

I think Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great”, would agree.

Enjoy your summer where every you may be.

~~~~~~

Wendy Kennedy

author/advisor/and lady with the flipcharts

So What? Who Cares? Why You?

www.wendykennedy.com

Comments

[julien]

best post ever on this blog.
made me smile and seriously interesting.
We sometime forget we are not alone on this planet and that we should look more carefully to the best model we have: NATURE
a french writer wrote a trilogy on ants to give a new look on human nature and became a best seller.
Bernard Werber.