The Garden

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

I wanted to start a garden this year. It was really a response to the shelter-at-home Covid-19 situation initially. I’d wanted to do it for a long time, but I drug my feet. Concerns about potential food supply chain issues downstream pushed me over the top. Now was the time. Even if I failed and bugs ate the entire garden, at least I was doing SOMETHING.

So my wife and I started the garden. She and I are 100%/100% partners in this. She’s the brains, I’m the brawn. She found the place; the context. God revealed to her that there was a plot at the community garden next to our daughter’s plot (hmmm..quite the “coincidence.”) I had never considered doing it offsite. I envisioned it here, at our home. But this context was perfect. Despite my heavy reluctance at first, I said yes, and we proceeded.

Fast forward. We are now deep into the garden work; still cultivating and reclaiming what had been a neglected plot; planting in raised beds, sowing seed, laying down mulch and more. It’s still a supply chain issue, but it’s become much more than that. There are other gardeners there. Other plots. There’s community. It’s a beautiful location. It’s gets me out of my home and to a neutral location. It’s people, air, breezes, birds, water, open space, resources.

As I muscled the wheelbarrow back and forth the other night, stepping through puddles, as the sun was in it’s advanced decline to the horizon for the day, as the breeze blew across my face, I realized it’s not about supply chain any longer. It’s about freedom. The garden is freedom. The garden is choice. That garden is earth, mind, muscle, and faith. The garden is community. The garden is mindset. I smiled and rested as I made my way to the car to head home.

What helps set you free?

More on Marketing

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

This week I secured a negotiated project with a client. I visited the client about 4 or 5 years ago. I hadn’t secured a project before this week. I know their CEO, Director of Marketing, VP of Operations, Engineering Manager, a couple of Project Executives, and project managers. But nothing happened prior. Sometimes these things take time.

Over the 4 or 5 years I have been an admirer of their growth and I have kept in touch with them. They are reasonably well represented on social media, so my company social media person and I advocate for them and support a lot of their values. One of them is their “Women in Construction” advocacy and staffing.

They like us, we like them. We both create visibility and awareness. There’s been a lot of talk, contact at conferences, and just some good mutual respect. But no work. No project. No actual transactional business relationship. But that’s okay.

Then it all changed. And it changed quickly. You see a project manager from another client that we worked with joined their organization last year. When the project executive on her project needed an engineering parter, and someone that could collaborate through the process, she said “what about Wheaton Sprague and John Wheaton?”

Then came the RFP, then the phone call, context, urgency, clarity of values, and timing. The proposal was written. Follow up happended from them immediately, and a deal was cut, a proposal signed and a Purchase order received.

You see, the relatiohship is paramount. The relationship is to be nutured always, regardless of where it leads transactionally or at a given moment. The relationship has meaning OUTSIDE of a sale. The SALE is just the final expression of value, trust, and relationship; a promissary note that describes what they will pay us when we deliver on our scope and promises.

Don’t ever lead with a sale. It’s disengenuous. Lead with relationship and with sincerity, not manipulation. Everyone knows you are in business to make money. But that’s the end of the process, not the start.

I’m grateful to now be working with them.

Sometimes these things take time.

The Parking Garage Health Facility

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

The Cleveland Clinic turned a parking garage into a makeshift medical facility. It looks like a M.A.S.H. unit. This is a great example of “pivoting” (yes I know that’s a buzzword.) Let me back up and take you to the start.

A family member needed a Covid-19 test at the Clinic due to a required medical procedure. I was asked to drive them. The instructions said “go to the Walker parking garage lower level.” “What? Testing in a parking garage?” “This should be interesting,” I thought.

Fast forward to the parking garage. It was brilliant. It’s run with military precision. Specific cars allowed at specific times. Signage, work stations, medical professionals gowned and masked, directing traffic, helping guide, doing testing. No one got out of their car. It’s all done through an open car window. Fifteen minutes. In and out.

Why did this impress me? There’s multiple reasons. The Cleveland Clinic is BIG but they flexed. It was creative, it was clean, it was efficient and it was in a parking deck.

Here’s some of my impressions and takeaways:

1. Big business doesn’t have to be rigid.

2. I’ll bet the nurses didn’t learn traffic flow directing in school. We’ve got to be nimble and self educated in whatever we do.

3. The Clinic got creative and we can be creative in this environment as well.

4. The use of a parking deck; an ordinary, bland, concrete, parking deck. Brilliant. It’s out of the way, efficient for moving cars, isolated from the hospital.

5. Flexibility. People were working from the lower level garage. Its exterior air. There were propane heaters and chairs in strategic locations. It’s not the best space to work from. Professionals have to be flexible. One never knows what to expect next or how they can drive new value in new paradigms.

6. “Can do” attitude. The Clinic figured out a way to test quickly, safely, politely and with test results delivered between 8 hrs and 24 hrs.

Questions:

How nimble are we? How creative are we? How quickly can our business and minds pivot? Can we rally people to deliver around a cause; around a problem, and above and beyond? Are we willing to go there as leaders?

Excuses are easy. Solutions aren’t hard once we eliminate the excuse, we stop looking for others to show the way, and we take responsibility to act, lead, move.

Even parking decks can be a place associated with healing. What have you got that is being overlooked?