American Land Title Association‘s biannual Large Agents Conference is one of my favorite to attend, and not just because the locations are unreal. We put together an agenda and discuss the biggest issues facing title agents from the leaders in our industry. It’s also held twice a year which is important because the challenges we encounter are changing all the time.
Last week I got to work with Kelly Roosa Cohen to put together a discussion on Employee Training. The topic was still on my mind as I took a long meander through the vineyard onsite. (Disclaimer: I know nothing about wine, wineries, vineyards, etc. which will be readily apparent to anyone who does.)
The End Goal
The first vines I encountered were large, leafy, and producing bunches of grapes. I was immediately fascinated by the sheer amount of structures in place to support the vines. As a child, there were grape vines behind our cottage and they were wild, growing all over the place. My first impression was – oh no, why are they so restricted? But it’s obvious: the objective here is to produce uniform, predictable wine. The winery accomplishes this by training its vines to produce grapes in a consistent manner.
It’s the same with your business (winery). You have a product or service you provide (wine) and you need your employees (vines) to operate/perform in a way to consistently and predictably produce what you need (grapes) to provide that product or service.
I continued to wander the vineyard to observe the vines in various stages of growth.
The Grow Tube
These newly planted vines have white grow tubes around them, which protect them and create a greenhouse effect, encouraging growth. Are you doing this for your new employees? Are you protecting them and creating an environment that encourages rapid growth? This is your business’ foundational structure – your new hire onboarding procedures, your handbook, introduction to company culture – your grow tube.
That grow tube also has to be secured to a larger structure – the vertical supports. This allows your employees to have a path to growth, a direction to move towards. It’s not enough to provide them the grow tube, they need support as well and clear expectations of where they should end up.
This group of new vines only have one horizontal support and it is well above them, but it is established and waiting. The vines don’t know about it yet, don’t know when and how they’ll need them, but the winery has already put them in place because they know when and how they’ll be needed by the vines. It’s the winery’s job to know this.
Lastly, the basics: irrigation, which is contained in that horizontal support. Every stage of the growth process I saw incorporated massive infrastructure for irrigation. What’s the one thing your employees undeniably need, at every single stage of their growth within your company? I likened the irrigation to compensation.
I see green!
Your employees are hired, onboarded, and they’re in the midst of training. Look at them grow! They are starting to peek out and extend beyond the grow tube safety net you’ve provided. The vertical supports keep them moving up, in line, and in their own lane. For the first time, they encounter the lowest horizontal support.
You did all the work in the beginning and now it’s being fully taken advantage of. But don’t get comfortable, you’ll need to start investing in additional support systems as your vines (employees) grow.
Training Wheels are Off
No more grow tube – these vines are structurally sound, with the vertical support system you’ve provided them since they first started growing. But now you’ll notice there’s a second tier of horizontal supports. These new supports aren’t providing irrigation like the original horizontal support. But they are anticipatory support, preparation for the continued growth of the vine.
What’s really noticeable here, besides the removal of the grow tubes, is that for the first time in the growth process, the vines are showing some variation. There’s individuality in each of the vines and some are growing quicker than others. This absolutely happens with employee training. You can start out two people with identical qualifications at the same time, and there will come a point where the differences and growth potentials become noticeable, identifiable. Keep in mind – the goal here is the end product: wine. All sorts of vines can produce grapes that make wine. Do you want a very productive vine whose grapes aren’t as flavorful? Or a less productive, smaller vine, whose grapes are always very flavorful? The vines are wild plants, not artificially produced goods. But the winery’s job is to create a structure and system to foster as much consistency as possible with the use of wild plants.
Three Years Later…
You read that right. It takes three years for a vine to mature and become strong enough to support healthy, high-quality grapes. And the winery is pouring time and money into the vines the entire time to ensure this – like water, pest control, and pruning (compensation, resources, training).
It was a little hypnotizing to walk through the vineyard among the mature vines (I don’t even know if these are considered mature). Mostly because the vineyard has such symmetry – the center trunks of the vines reach up to the second horizontal support at which point it splits into two branches. There are more horizontal supports above trunks which the vines’ tendrils wrap around and give it strength when growing heavy bunches of grapes. The vines overlap on these supports, intertwining and looking like a uniform mass of leaves and grapes. The uniformity makes sense, but again, is very hard to produce. It requires a strong system with planning, support, and stages. In short, it requires an experienced, established winery that knows what it’s doing.
But I’m not a big fancy winery
These vines were growing by the hotel, more like landscaping than a vineyard. They have only a horizontal support and irrigation tubes on the ground. They’re tall, leafy, and have grapes! They weren’t pulled and pruned along a second horizontal structure to split their trunks. They have less structure and more freedom. I don’t know enough about grapes to know if the ones on these vines are inferior to the ones on the main vineyard. But I know enough about employees to know that some need more structure than others. Some need just the basics to thrive, and the freedom to grow in the manner that best suits them and the environment you, the winery, puts them in.
You don’t need to have the resources, time, and energy to create and cultivate a fancy winery-level vineyard – the goal is wine. You can make wine from vines growing wild behind my childhood cottage. Or you can plant a few very strong vines to produce just enough wine for you to enjoy.
Don’t Force It
I wandered over to this big beautiful shady tree and spent some time resting beneath it. As I walked past, I was again struck by the symmetry of the row of vines that were planted around the existing tree. I imagine it would have been pointless and largely unsuccessful to try and plant the vines closer to the tree, or worse, tear the tree down to make room for the vines.
If the goal is to make wine, what’s the point of this non-grape-producing bemouth tree taking up valuable real estate? You tell me. We all have a tree like this in our business or industry. It could be tradition, the-way-it’s-always-been-done mentality. Or maybe it’s a legacy client who provides your vines with much-needed shade. Just because it isn’t making grapes doesn’t mean it isn’t helping make the wine, in one way or another.
Your success with employees depends on the structure and support you give them not just at the beginning of their time with you, but throughout their seasons – including dormant winter. Are you willing to wait three years to make wine? Or will you force your vines into rapid production and make them bear fruit even if they aren’t prepared to support it, harvest the grapes and not worry about how the vine is going to survive and produce the next year? The vines have a job – to produce quality grapes the winery can turn into wine. But so much about how the winery supports its vines, encourages growth, prunes, irrigates, and protects against pests determine how well the vine can do its job.
