Sowing the Seeds at the Workplace

Sowing the seeds is an excellent phrase. It means today's actions (sowing of seed) will lead to future outcomes (fruits). It may be positive or negative. Let's assume you put a mango seed in the ground, the seed will turn into a fruit-bearing tree. This assumption is based on known biological processes. The tree may grow into a fruit-bearing one or die before due to the external environment.

Whatever the context—biological, social, psychological, or business related—the outcome depends on the goals, structure, environment, and strategies for achieving results. For example, the growth of the mango tree depends on environmental variables—such as soil, rain, sun, and wind—as well as the strategies implemented by the grower, such as which fertilizer to use and how to protect the tree from the environment.

In business, all employees can plant seeds in a corporation, so management needs to be watchful because bad seeds can destroy it. A corporation is a team working towards achieving common goals. The CEO should take the lead to sow the seeds based on the company's vision, mission, and goals. Like the mango tree and its fruits, the corporation will not grow profitable unless management creates the environment to support its growth.

So, to ripen the company’s fruits for the shareholders, the CEO should sow seeds in five different areas: customers, employees, suppliers, investors, and corporate culture.

The customer base seed

Businesses develop and produce products and services to solve customer problems. For example, a restaurant serves food to solve their customers' hunger problems. A firm’s quality service and ability to understand its customers' changing needs will build the company's brand as well as customer loyalty.

The employee seed

Every business has goals for the future, so cooperation among employees means everyone working towards achieving them.

The supplier seed

Suppliers are an integral part of the business operation. In an age of subassembly manufacturing and outsourcing of services, suppliers must understand the needs of their customers, and their products and/or services should be designed based on them.?

The investor seed

Investors invest in a business for long-term growth. Thus, firms should build a strong foundation for it, which means minimizing volatility and producing stable returns.

The corporate culture seed

Corporate culture is the values and beliefs of a corporation, and it creates an environment for employees, customers, and suppliers to interact and achieve their profit motives. These motives are only achievable if everyone interacting has shared values, beliefs, and behaviors. Ethics as well as internal and external customer focus is part of the culture.

Humans create, operate, and run businesses, and we learn how to sow the seeds knowingly or unknowingly as we grow up. Sowing for positive outcomes such as education, work ethics, positive culture, and personal and professional ethics results in benefits, and lack of education and destructive culture leads to negative outcomes that destroy personal, professional, and social lives. Every employee in the business must know that the purpose of sowing the seeds is to create benefits (i.e., fruit) for the stakeholders. The CEO is responsible for sowing the seeds for the corporation's growth, for satisfying the employees' needs, and for creating a corporate culture that creates value for the shareholders.

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