Good to Great

No one can say Estate Gardeners wasn't a successful company when its owners decided to dismantle and rebuild it. But they did it anyway.

From its humble beginnings in 1993, when Michael Becker lashed raspberry brambles to the roof of his Toyota Tercel and his wife Patricia Burleson delivered sod in her Honda Civic, the company grew to be financially successful and recognized for its artistic and ethical excellence.

By the time of the reorganization it had been featured in the Omaha World-Herald, earning it earning it name recognition and job leads across the region. The area Better Business Bureau bestowed its 2005 Integrity Award on the company for its high ethical standards. It was also recognized many times for its work, including the Professional Landcare Network's 2006 Environmental Improvement Award of Distinction.

There was just one problem. A fan of Jim Collins' bestselling book, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't," Michael says he realized the company needed to be taken to the next level. "One of the lessons of the book is that good is the enemy of great. Good is a momentum killer; it's easy to be satisfied with good and never seek to become exceptional. We were guilty of that, business wise."

He realized that the primary problem was that the company was resting on its owners' shoulders, and its success to that point had increased the burden until it became unbearable. Michael says that he had become both the company's most important asset and its biggest liability.

"I realized I was limiting the company's progress because nearly everything had to be relayed through my head—sales, marketing, scheduling, bookkeeping, purchasing, project management, and on and on. We were doing excellent work and pleasing customers, but nothing else was getting the attention it deserved, because I was doing the bare minimum to get by. It was very stressful and it wasn't fun."

And that's why he and Patricia decided to start again from scratch.

A new roster
In January 2006, they were the only two people left in the company. Weeks before they had told the full-time staff that things were going to change and that the company was going to operate under a much tighter structure. The staff quit.

"We had anticipated that they would," says Michael. "There really wasn't animosity, but most people simply don't like change. We were very clear that the company culture was going to be rebuilt on process and structure, and they weren't comfortable with that."

Working with consultant (and PLANET president-elect) Jason Cupp, Michael and Patricia went about creating job descriptions, a new business plan and a budget. Within 30 days, they were ready to set about the first big task — finding the best employees.

"We decided we had to put a lot more effort into the hiring process, to not just fill the roster with warm bodies and hope for the best. We needed to find people who want to work in landscaping and for Estate Gardeners in particular, not those just looking for a job," he says, noting that one of the principles in "Good to Great" is to start with "who," not "where" or "what."

Michael says having detailed job descriptions is a great help in interviews. It allows him to ask candidates whether they're capable of performing specific tasks and, more importantly, to judge whether they have any objection to performing them. But one of the major changes he made was to focus on candidates' intelligence, charisma and character, rather than skill. He says this was both due to necessity-most skilled and experienced workers are nabbed by large companies in his market-and his own experience.

"We can give employees the knowledge, but we can't teach character," Michael says. "We once had an employee who was exceptionally skilled and seemingly indispensable; he was great at taking my ideas and putting them into action. But he also undermined anyone he considered a rival. He was a cancer on morale and was driving people away, which we only found out later. It was like cutting off my right arm, but we had to let him go."