I posted on my blog this week for the first time in five months. I got five comments! My ego made me check my stats and I discovered my most popular category – the stuff folks really dig – bitching.
So here goes.
Two days ago the Los Angeles Times ran a front page story on how dry New Mexico is. How dry is New Mexico, my land of enchantment? The driest of the dry according to the Times. Last year, for example, it rained a total of THREE inches. But in the last 30 days we have experienced double that rainfall. It’s been a typical monsoon season. Clear and sunny in the morning – hot by noon – clouds rumble in – wind kicks up and rain dumps on our desert dusty land. It’s been delightful.
My drive home on the Cochiti Highway each night is beyond belief. The usual cracked parched dirt has been replaced with a lovely blanket of green. The cows are grazing, the bunnies are feasting, it’s like living in the Northwest without the gloom.
Last night as I was sipping my cocktail on my back patio I noticed Mark tugging on a little plant that had begun to grow between our flagstone. I shrieked at him. What are you doing? He said, “I’m pulling up a weed.” That’s not a weed! That’s a desert miracle. Some persistent god given growing living plant that is merely adding color to our otherwise beige patio. Nope, Mark argued, it’s a weed.
What is the definition of a weed? A weed is something that you did not plant and feel like you may have no control over unless you kill it at first site. Doesn’t matter if it’s nice looking, may serve some purpose, it’s not in my plan, it’s got to go.
It got me thinking about the culture of credit unions. A “weed” is often seen as new thought or the enthusiasm of a new employee wanting to improve something by suggesting change. Management often sees this as a threat because THEY didn’t plant it and if not killed at first site could grow out of control (influence other staff).
Weed killer comes in many forms – the spray kind “Oh, we tried that once.” The classic manual weed pull “Our computer system can’t handle that.” And finally bringing in the big guns, going to the root (the dandelion digger) to make sure the weed will not return “This is the way we’ve always done it.”
I vow to protect my weeds. To find beauty in them and celebrate their success. I’m going to look at them differently, as certainly having some potential. Especially when there’s been a severe innovation drought.
Cheers!
The 2020 Vision of Marketing 
9 comments
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August 9, 2013 at 11:09 am
Brad
I’m trying hard these days to fertilize my weeds so they grow up big and strong!
August 9, 2013 at 11:36 am
Denise Wymore
Booyah!
August 9, 2013 at 11:22 am
James Robert Lay
Good to see you back to blogging and sharing your ideas. Love ’em as always.
On the flip side, the weed could be the credit union leader who is so rooted into the ground they no longer want to grow… or they are scared to produce fruit giving them the opportunity to grow.
Or there roots are beginning to spread they are killing off the beautiful flowers around them.
In this case, the weed killer needs to be brought out to allow the other flowers to grow, seed and ultimately spread their beauty.
Never the less, just wanted to share a different perspective to your “weed theory”.
Cheers!
August 9, 2013 at 11:37 am
Denise Wymore
Thanks for the comment James Robert.
I like your CEO as weed analogy. Been there.
August 9, 2013 at 12:39 pm
tinfoiling
“living in the Northwest without the gloom.” How quick they forget when they move away….
I was just out behind the firehall across the driveway from the credit union. Behind the hall is a vacant lot. When the city bought the lot we approached the fireman and said if we supplied the fencing would they put it up. We put the fence about a quarter of the way up into the lot. The landscape people have mowed it, we have a concrete picnic table and there is a planter there. It is quiet, well kept and a secluded place to have a quiet minute.
On the other side of the fence it has grown wild with tall grass, blackberry bushes, roses growing wild. It is an unkept vacant lot where the birds nest and the rabbits live. Very different from our ‘civilized’ side of the fence.
I think there has to be a place were things are untouched and let go. No one gets must inspiration from a well kept lot and a picnic table, they get it looking at the birds and wildlife in this maze of grass and brambles. They get it listening to the birds chirping an flying overhead, or the woodpecker hammering away at a dead stump. The wild gives us reasons to consider who we are and what we do. The well groomed, habitable places give us a momentary sense of security by the order we have put into it.
Your weeds give you the themes you need to innovate. The patio gives you the comfortable place to contemplate. We need both but there are so many that would just pull up the weeds or make sure they have a tidy vacant lot. New Mexico is called the Land of Enchantment right? No one gets too enchanted by well kept lawns or patios.
August 9, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Denise Wymore
Gene,
Damn. You nailed it.
But I stand by my gloom statement.
And Cochiti Kitty lives on. He is a constant source of enjoyment and inspiration.
August 9, 2013 at 1:01 pm
James Robert Lay
Well said Gene… your thoughts and imagery reminded me of Henry David Thoreau, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
August 13, 2013 at 1:02 pm
Matt Davis
Weeds also grow from neglect. There’s this interesting balance we must strike between enjoying nature and letting it consume us. Each us us has our own equilibrium in which our desire for acting on the world is balanced out by our need to let it act on us.
I have a high need to push the world’s buttons, and an equally high desire for the world to push mine.
August 13, 2013 at 1:30 pm
chriscd
I have often noticed that some weeds are quite beautiful, quite green, and quite strong. I sometimes wonder if they are truly the problem. They seem more resistant than your normal lawn and often easier to care for.
I love your analogy. I followed this form a LinkedIn post. Sorry that it is on a post about “Bi%$^ing”. Very glad that you turned it into something positive.
cd :O)