A GOOSE LAYING

Those familiar with LandCare know it as a powerhouse championing meaningful landscapes through 60 coast-to-coast locations.

Specializing in design, installation and maintenance, the company employs experts in diverse trades from snow and ice removal to horticultural business management. Mike Bogan, chief executive officer for LandCare, is deeply grateful to be part of this wide-reaching team. Even so, he does not shy away from the fact that the history of this company is not all sunflowers and roses.

“By the time I joined the business at the end of 2014, the revenue had declined by 80 percent, and a lot of talented people left the organization,” says Mike. “When TruGreen LandCare began in 1998-1999, it was a merger of two companies already aggressively buying landscape companies across the country. Over the next 10 years, the organization had a series of different CEOs, and they were struggling to create a consistent culture.”

Company culture is a subject that Mike’s curiosity fixated upon long ago, especially during his 23 years working with Scott Brickman at The Brickman Group. At the time, the two were fascinated by the work of author and business theorist W. Edwards Deming. Looking at the big picture and evaluating what motivates people is a pursuit Mike plans to always reckon with. He’s the sort of person who uses the golden rule like a bookmark, defining the progress in his life’s story.

Mike’s first order of business with LandCare was to recruit likeminded, experienced leaders with a clear picture of what a team-centered business model looks like. Then, he went straight to those who knew the strengths and weaknesses of the current business model more intimately than anyone else: the employees.

“I was in two different cities, sometimes twice a day,” says Mike. “I moved quickly to visit every branch and conducted a two-hour meeting at each. The goal of the meeting was to ask a series of questions. What do you enjoy about working here? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What does a great company look like and how do they act? That was the first part. Then came the hard questions. What are we doing today that makes you unhappy? What do you dislike about the way this business is managed? Honestly, they opened up much more with those last ones.”

Shabby equipment and overlooked safety protocols were causing employees to feel devalued. Those bullet points, though objectively inexcusable, were only the tip of the iceberg. Mike was baffled to discover that, to meet financial objectives, branches were often shut down at the end of the month, leaving vulnerable hourly employees short on pay. Shockingly, some laborers also alleged being told to skip over certain services stipulated in project contracts if it was reasonable to assume the client would not notice whether or not they had occurred.

“There were a lot of bad practices going on in the business, and the team members didn’t like it,” says Mike. “They didn’t feel proud to do work that way, and they felt like they were put in a position of making excuses to their clients. When they shared these things, I immediately responded with, ‘Well, we are never doing that again.’ I was very direct and firm about that.”

Rebranding, building trust internally and externally, and feeding integrity into every fiber of the company’s journey moving forward became glaring priorities for Mike and his cohort of new leaders. Team members across the country began working on new graphics right away. Within 90 days of Mike’s onboarding, they presented LandCare branded mockups to the team as a glimpse into the future. Mike knew they only had one chance to redefine themselves, and he wanted to do it right. Through 2017, that vision would become a reality, following extensive work behind the scenes to mend relationships and instill moral standards.

“We’re owned today by our leaders that work in the business every day, myself and our senior leaders,” says Mike. “We bought the business in 2019 and now have our first real chance at constancy of purpose. That term, constancy of purpose, is profoundly important to me, and it is not easy to create in a world where companies are continuously bought and sold. For LandCare, knowing that we would never belong to another business was crucial. It allowed us to build the company I always believed we could.”

Today, LandCare has doubled its size, but this is far from the only manner in which they have grown. Mike calls the business a learning organization, meaning the hunt for new operation methods is encouraged at every tier. Groups within the organization, like WIN (Woman’s Initiative Network), along with book clubs, training programs and frequent virtual hangouts, aid the company’s objective to give every member a voice.

Fear-based motivation techniques are way too popular from Mike’s perspective. In contrast, the most effective method Mike has learned to invigorate a business through and through is most simply characterized by meeting people where they are. Hiring employees who believe doing work well is its own reward leads to a greater appreciation of landscapes on the job site and off. That positive association is as good as gold to leaders like Mike.

“If you run your business well, it is like a goose laying golden eggs,” says Mike. “You would never have to sell that goose if you tended to it, collected the golden eggs and put them to good use. That’s what we believe LandCare can be. We have never raced to a single payday to fully take advantage of how a business can be rewarding to its shareholders.”

There are few instances where a broken object surpasses its previous strength once repaired. Most of us learned the consequences of carelessness when a childhood toy became too disfigured to mend. Businesses, like landscapes, are not like objects. They evolve and change. Embracing this truth, as Mike has done, could be a stepping stone into a world of fulfillment.