It’s been a banner year for the residential, custom design/build business as the pandemic continues to put an emphasis on outdoor living.

“2020 was record-breaking for us. It was really good and busy,” Larson says. “COVID definitely attributed to the success — especially here in the Midwest…2021 has been absolutely no different. We’re already nearly sold out for the year.”

But despite all the growth, Larson says COVID has exacerbated one problem — labor.

“The challenge, which happened before COVID too, is finding people who are willing to work with their hands,” she says. “Finding someone who is not afraid to work outdoors instead of in front of a computer is hard…It’s not just digging holes. There’s a lot of skill to it.”

To combat this, Larson says she’s been willing to pay up.

“Finding people to do the work is the most difficult part, to be honest,” she says. “As a result of that, you have to pay people a living wage. You have to pay them a wage they can raise a family on, a wage they can pay a mortgage on.”

With an already small team of just five employees, Larson says paying a fair wage is essential to keep them from looking for work elsewhere.

“I have one employee who drives quite a distance to work, and he thought he could drive somewhere closer to home and work for someone else,” she says. “He found my pay rate was $3 to $4 more an hour than they were willing to pay him for his skillset, so he stayed.”

It seems to be working out for Larson, who says her employees are incredibly loyal.

“The shortest tenure on my crew right now is two years. I’ve got some who’ve been here for seven or eight years — they’re long-term employees,” she says. “They really become cohesive as a team, too. And company culture becomes really important.”

However, Larson acknowledges that because she’s paying her team more, her rates have increased. While it’s caused some perspective clients to price compare a little more, Larson says she isn’t concerned.

“Often landscape projects have sticker shock because of that,” she says. “Then they shop around and find out that it’s really the going price, and then they commit… I don’t know if society is accustomed to (increases) already, but they’re not going to have a choice.”

Last year, the company grew 100% and doubled in size. Revenue hit $8.4 million. For 2021, Lingo says he expects the growth to be closer to 30-40%.

“This year has been a challenge,” Lingo says. He adds the majority of issues are surrounding supply chain disruptions.

“Almost everything from plants to PVC pipe to equipment is four to six weeks at a minimum,” he says. ‘We’ve been waiting three months now for some new equipment to come in just because they don’t have a chip for it, or they don’t have a hydraulic valve or something else. That’s been our biggest frustration.”

As a commercial landscape company and tree farm that services the whole state of Oklahoma, Lingo says they rely on renting trucks to transport material.

“Trucking shortages are a big issue for us right now,” he says. “We can’t get semi-trucks to haul material for us because they are in such high demand.”

Additionally, Lingo says the supply chain problems has caused prices to skyrocket. For example, the company is paying about $100,000 per week just for PVC piping. Because of this, Lingo says they’ve been forced to rethink their job costing.

“Our new estimates that we put out reflect the current price at bidding, plus an allowance,” he explains. “We’re putting 10% allowance on all materials, whereas a couple years ago, we’d just bid it at what the rate was. We think it’s going to go higher, so we’re putting a higher rate on there.”

However, most jobs are booked a year or so out, so Lingo says they are taking a hit for materials in that regard.

“For the jobs we already have contracts on, we’re having to eat the increases,” he says. “So, there’s no change orders because of higher prices.”

Lingo says the increased prices is attributing to more competition when Green Shade goes out to bid.

“The market is tighter than it was before,” he says. “This spring was very tight. There are a lot of guys bidding for the same work, and as the year’s gone on, some of those companies have quit bidding as much just because there is a lot of work right now. So, everyone’s replaceable.”

Despite this, Lingo says the work keeps coming in.

“If someone calls us for a job right now, we’re four to six weeks out because we have such a backlog,” he says. “And that’s just our short-term jobs. We have long-term jobs that won’t be done until August of 2022 and work that won’t happen until 2023.”

Walmsley says open communication with his customers has led the full-service landscape company to new heights these past two years.

“2020 and 2021 have been phenomenal years for us sales wise,” he says. “In 2020, we saw 40% growth and then we’re on pace to beat that this year.”

Setting clear expectations with new customers is at the forefront of this growth.

“We have open and honest conversations with our clients,” Walmsley says. “We tell people right off the bat that we’re not the cheapest company and we’re not the most expensive, but you’ll get the most bang for your buck with us.”

Pricing competitively on the island can be tough at times. Walmsley says he’s had to fend off lowball offers.

“One of the bigger problems we have around here is that we’ve got about 64 registered companies on Hilton Head and probably another 40 or so that are unregistered,” he says. “Trying to establish pricing to compete with people who don’t have the overhead is hard, but so is getting the clientele to realize that the people who don’t have the overheard usually don’t have the knowledge or knowhow.”

Even so, Walmsley says he won’t let the threat keep him from losing quality just to deliver a lower price.

“We’re trying not to look at any competition,” he says. “We’re trying to look at ourselves and how can we be the best Island Environments tomorrow and how can we be better tomorrow than we are today. So, a lot of our focus going into the winter will be on how to improve our own processes and procedures to deliver the best we can for our clients.”

Walmsley says his team will be ramping up training during the offseason and he experts there to be a few internal promotions as well.

Quality is essential to Island Environments, and another threat to that has been the labor shortage.

“Currently, we have 30 employees,” Walmsley says. “Normally we are in the 38-40 range.”

In order not to lose quality, the company has transitioned to smaller crew sizes and is looking at making additional changes to its maintenance routes.

“We’ve tried having thinner crews,” he says. “We’re on the verge of evaluating whether or not we need to drop some maintenance accounts. Normally, we like to run three-man crews and we just don’t have the people to do that at the moment. So, two-man crews have been the norm for us this year other than for our prime accounts.”

When Silvers restarted his business in 2014, he admits things were pretty stagnant for the first few years, but not anymore.

“This year, things have doubled,” he says. “All because I answer the phone and I’m out there and I’m recognized.”

Silvers credits his spike in sales to really focusing on his branding along with social media promotion.

“I got my website and I’m all over Facebook, so I’m being found,” he says.

Silvers says he’s posting Facebook Stories daily — featuring everything from his dog, Molly, to his hats, his mowers and his truck.

“The people in Findlay know who Ken Silvers is,” he says. “They see my truck parked at coffee shops with the big, giant logo on it. People ask me if I’m Ken Silvers and they’ll say, ‘I see your truck all over town.’”

Utilizing google and staying on top of SEO has also allowed Silvers to reach a wider audience in his town. He recommends taking the time to fill out a detailed Google Business Profile.

Silver says by embracing his name as the company’s, people form more of a personal connection with him.

“My name’s on there, and I’m doing the service,” he says. “I’m not trying to hide behind some other name.”

Silvers had a different landscaping company back in the 1980s, and he says that one got quite large. But now, he says by staying small he’s able to deliver better, high-quality service.

“I used to be big, but I decided that’s not who I am,” he says. “I’m Ken Silvers and I want to service my customers and I have to have the time to do it. So, I won’t take on another customer if it takes away from the 30 or so I have now.”

Keeping his work within a close radius is also helping Silvers to grow the business.

“I’m not in a big, giant market,” he says. “I do not go outside of Findlay within five miles. I can’t afford to go 20 miles one way for a lawn. So, I stay small.”

Even being a one-man operation, Silvers says he’s able to keep up with the competition and charge a fair price.

“People aren’t charging enough,” he says. “I’m charging $10 to $15 more than most people.”

The 36-year-old company Kim Bius runs offers many clients annuals, perennials, ornamentals and even wind chimes. But Kim’s Home and Garden also has a landscape design branch for multifamily, commercial and estate clients, and they’ve been taking new orders every day. Bius says the company is solidly booked through October.

“We’re the folks in the industry who people will come to if they want something incredible made,” Bius says.

With six employees in the division, Bius also cites the labor shortage as a reason for consternation, even amidst steady revenue flowing in. The division alone — led by a foreman and a landscape designer who’s been at the company for 20 years — has produced roughly $600,000 in revenue in 2021 and will continue to rise.

Yet the labor shortage is familiar territory for Bius. What wasn’t familiar this season was uncharacteristic weather in Texas pushing back the start of their season and holding up production overall. The Texas freeze in February and, later, 36 inches of rain in a month pushed back when the company got rolling.

“The weather has been bizarre in my part of Texas,” she says. “We didn’t get kicked off until late April.”

Bius says that thankfully, her team managed the storm well. Despite a foot of snow around Valentine’s Day, they took every plant they had into a retail facility just to keep the plants alive. Then, when it was over, they had two giant storage containers with heaters in them for the materials.

It’s been a while since Bius had to move swiftly like that for freezing weather: She says the day she opened on January 2 in 1985, there was a major ice storm. With a strong sense of déjà vu looming as she kept up-to-date with Texas weather reports this year, she opted to move quickly.

“I just had a feeling how bad it was going to be,” she says. “I didn’t want to lose $100,000 in plants. It was my dime, so let’s get it done.”

Strong relationships helped Kody Ketterling’s company deal with the early goings of COVID-19, and now they’re helping the Idaho-based company manage supply chain complications, too.

Interestingly, Ketterling says he’s never met two of his clients, and there was one he met last year who lives all the way out in Pennsylvania but owns a property in Idaho. But frequent communication via an app and Zoom meetings has allowed his five-person team to stay close with clients. Ketterling says that nobody has canceled their services with him despite delays in when jobs can get done caused by an industry-wide shortage in supplies.

“You’re set out six, seven, eight months – you better order before you even need to order,” Ketterling says, adding that his “one-stop shop” company has seen delays in getting parts. It’s not just irrigation sprayers or plant materials — it’s pretty much everything. “Everything’s just been pushed out weeks and weeks and weeks,” he says.

The company largely does commercial work and has dealt with a lack of materials by not maxing out the number of jobs the company can ordinarily take on; instead, they’re largely servicing the same clients they usually have, albeit some jobs take another day or two because labor is as scarce as supplies. What’s more, a heat wave earlier this summer put parts of the West Coast through dangerous temperatures, which meant plants were also more susceptible to dying off early. So, Ketterling contacted his customers and offered a compromise.

“We told all of our customers, ‘You can either do this and void your warranty, or you can let us wait until it cools down,’” he says. All of his customers opted for the latter.

Ketterling adds that his company benefits from having had many of their customers for five to 13 years, so those relationships helped in difficult conversations. Besides, it wasn’t as though other landscapers in the area weren’t also dealing with intense heat, labor shortages and supply chain issues.

“We strive on quality versus speed, so we work pretty close with our clients,” Ketterling says. “We don’t care if we know you (from in-person meetings) or not, our deal is to do it and to approach it as if you’re there all the time. We don’t skip steps.”

With six locations spread across Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina, ExperiGreen has operated since 2016 and does 98% of its chemical lawn care work at residential sites.

As a newer company, the early goings of COVID-19 were frightening — Irwin can readily admit that now. In the Detroit market, pandemic restrictions were particularly tricky to navigate, as they had been shut down all of April when the season started in 2020.

“That was all of production, all the sales, so that really hurt us right when the season started,” Irwin says. “I think people were just kind of freaked out.”

But that was then, and this is now: Irwin says during the pandemic, his team beefed up its digital marketing unit and the results have been “especially good.” The business grew amidst the early goings of COVID, but in 2021, the company is growing past its targets.

“I think our digital presence and our digital marketing has really taken off this year,” Irwin says. “We have our own marketing team with a marketing director and a digital marketing manager, and she has really done a lot for us in building our website, improving our website, making it more interactive.”

ExperiGreen puts up two blog posts a week during the season and keeps up with its social media platforms. Irwin says the renewed focus on digital presence during a time where face-to-face has declined has helped — the company even redid its website just before the pandemic began and digital sales have skyrocketed.

“We built up some digital credibility,” he says, adding his company’s clients (single family homeowners) were able to still spend during COVID and were aided by stimulus money. “I think that demographic is a lot more confident about their economic situation, their job security.”

Of course, not all is perfect for ExperiGreen, but Irwin says their problems are issues the whole industry faces, namely labor. The unemployment rate continues to create high competition among companies trying to fill their trucks with new employees, and that also means a race to pay the best in the area has intensified.

“You’ve probably heard this from other guys, but the recruiting, hiring, staffing situation has just gotten that much more difficult this year,” Irwin says. “It’s tougher than it ever has been, and we’re paying more, too.”

As prices at the gas station continue to rise, landscape contractors say the increases are irritating but a necessary cost of doing business.

Zack Stratton, CEO of Stratton & Bratt, says the Utah-based company’s fuel bill is reaching $20,000 a week. However, Stratton says he isn’t too worried about the expense.

“For a company of our size, our fuel costs are really just a marginal part of $20 million in sales,” he says. “Even a $100,000 bump in fuel costs doesn’t really move the needle much for us.”

Stratton and Bratt is spending on fuel to power the fleet and equipment needed for crews to be operating at peak performance. During the height of the season, Stratton says there are about 250 employees.

“We have north of 100 trucks, 30 skid-steers in the fleet, mowers, mow crews and the whole bit that goes along with that,” he says. “It’s pretty extensive.”

Over in Healdsburg, Calif., Peter Estournes, vice president of Gardenworks, says high fuel bills are nothing new. But recent spikes in gas prices have been difficult to deal with.

“We’re used to it in California,” Estournes says. “We hate it. Our fuel bill last month was like $5,000 and typically it’s around $2,000 or $3,000.”

In September of 2020, gas prices in California averaged about $3.24 a gallon, according to research by AAA. Now, prices have been steadily over $4 a gallon.

“It’s showing over on the financials, but the reality is there’s nothing we can do about it, and it happens all the time here,” Estournes says of the increase. “We’re already paying the top amount for fuel in California anyway. The fact that it went from $3.29 to $4.39, it’s definitely a bother.”

Working around the increase.

Both Estournes and Stratton say their businesses are working to find ways to ease the financial burden of the fuel increases as best they can.

Years ago, Stratton & Bratt developed a strategy for implementing fuel surcharges when prices began to creep up too high.

“We thought about it six years ago when there was another big spike in fuel costs. We got together with the team and added at the bottom of all our contracts the opportunity for us to come back and give a surcharge if fuel costs rise above a certain amount,” Stratton says. “At the end of the year, we sat down and made that mark. Last year, we decided that for anything over $3.25 a gallon, we reserve the right to add a surcharge to the bill.”

So far in 2021, Stratton says they’ve been selective in utilizing the surcharge.

“We’ve exercised it on a handful of our larger accounts that use a lot more fuel and a lot more equipment,” he says.

And while some might think that a surcharge would be a surefire way to upset clients, Stratton says his customers have been surprisingly empathetic.

“I think by and large our client base has been pretty receptive and understanding to price increases,” he says. “Just because of the overall competitive landscape of what’s going on... Obviously, they have their limits, but a 3% increase hasn’t been much for them to swallow.”

At Gardenworks, Estournes says the business does whatever it can to avoid fuel surcharges. He adds they instead try and weather the uncertainty through thoughtful, thorough financial planning.

“We write it into the budget and write it into our crew average wage, so the burden is on the project,” he says.

Estournes says the most effective strategy to lower the costs is by simply utilizing less fuel.

“What we try to do is manage the accounts tighter for lawns and jobs that use power equipment,” he says. “So, we’ll do a lot more management with the irrigation systems and fertilization. So that most of the summer we can get by with every other week mowing on a lot of projects because we just stop fertilizing so it doesn’t grow as fast.”

Estournes says having crews be mindful about what equipment is necessary for a job has helped curb their fuel bill.

“We just don’t let the guys take the hedge trimmers and things out without knowing what they’re going to use them for,” he says. “We try to manage the usage of the equipment.”

And being water conscious is another contributing factor.

“We’re real strict on our water budgets so we aren’t inducing extra soft growth,” Estournes says.

Finding fuel alternatives.

Since fuel costs are so high and are expected to stay that way for some time, some landscaping companies may consider making the switch over to propane- or battery-powered equipment.

Gardenworks, which averages about 30 employees, isn’t ready to go that route just yet though.

“We’re too small and it’d be too much,” Estournes says. “We’re looking into it and looking into battery-powered technology. It just doesn’t seem to be a good fit yet.”

Estournes says the biggest hesitation he has when it comes to adopting battery-powered equipment is the massive overhaul it would take.

“It’s a standardization thing,” he says. “You’d have to train all the guys to make sure they know to have enough batteries in the truck and that there’s a power source to plug into so you can charge…whether that’s solar panels on the roof of a trailer or the new trucks out there.”

“What we try to do is manage the accounts tighter for lawns and jobs that use power equipment.” Peter Estournes, vice president of Gardenworks

Estournes notes that right now, with all the supply chain problems caused by COVID, replacing an entire fleet of trucks would not be practical.

“We don’t have any plans to buy new vehicles right away — especially with the availability of new vehicles and costs,” he says.

In fact, Estournes says costs are another reason the company isn’t switching over anytime soon.

“They would probably have to bring the cost down a little more,” he says of the equipment.

Cost is also associated in Stratton and Bratt holding out from going electric.

“The cost is still a little bit high when you map it out,” Stratton says. “There isn’t a ton of data on the longevity of that sort of stuff yet. Once data is produced, it’s really easy to build a financial model and say, ‘We’ll pay this off after X amount of years, and this will be our ROI.’”

Stratton says the company has been doing some initial research into battery-powered equipment.

“We’ve definitely talked about it and are looking into it,” he says. “What attracts us to it more than anything is the autonomous mower market. We are always looking into that.”

The ongoing labor shortage has made autonomous mowing look even more appealing to Stratton.

“We’re no different than anybody else — filling those front-line positions is really challenging,” he says. “I tell the guys as we start to look into this, that they won’t lose their job. They will just have the opportunity to get retrained and make a higher wage…it really creates an opportunity for them.”

Overall, Stratton says he feels his market, and most of the country, isn’t quite ready to accommodate the change.

“The challenge we’re facing is that we are probably five to seven years away from where the public works infrastructure is set up for us to really consider doing that on scale,” he says. “There has to be enough gas stations that have propane or natural gas, or there are enough fueling stations or places to plug in the trucks for electric charging.”

An unbothered bottom line.

Despite paying more at the pump, 2020 and the early part of 2021 has been successful for Gardenworks, yet Estournes expects growth won’t be quite at last year’s level.

“2020 wasn’t too bad, the pandemic notwithstanding,” Estournes says. “We managed to meet our budget. Our margin wasn’t as good as previous years, but we made our sales budget.

“And it’s been about the same,” he adds of this year. “Margins are still eroding but we’re on track.”

The same goes for Stratton and Bratt.

“Revenue is up. Profit is up. And everything is just up across the board,” Stratton says.

He also predicts that the fuel prices will be plateauing in Utah sooner rather than later.

“I don’t anticipate it doubling or anything,” Stratton says. “In Utah, I see it topping out at $4 a gallon, and then holding there before coming back down.”

Chris and Gregory Maroun had a very successful landscape business, Stecks Nursery & Landscaping, in southern Connecticut. In the late 1990s, Chris and his wife, Dede, decided to move a bit off the grid to the lake region of New Hampshire and semi-retire. Semi-retirement for Chris and Dede was to create Miracle Farms Landscaping in Moultonborough, N.H, that today employs about 100 people.

How it works in the field.

Chris recommended to his fence subcontractors, Rob and Aileen, who owned Brentwood Fence, LLC (BFLLC) that they work with me. The first thing that the three of us did was to create a 2019 budget for BFLLC. This allowed us to (1) analyze and benchmark the company’s operation; (2) establish realistic sales and cost goals for the year; and (3) calculate the labor burden and general and administrative (G&A) overhead costs used to price the various fence products that BFLLC installed and serviced.

Second, we calculated the daily labor rates for the various field crews. These rates included the labor, labor burden, crew truck and equipment costs, G&A overhead costs, and an appropriate net profit margin. Since Rob had accurate fence installation production rates, it was fairly easy to calculate the number of days that a fence installation job would take. Add the materials cost and any other ancillary costs with an appropriate margin to the number of days multiplied by the crew day rate, and fence installation pricing was not just easy to calculate — it was very accurate.

Third, Rob and Aileen implemented a simple incentive system based on daily crew production. Productivity was rewarded by the number of fence sections that they installed per day and per week. Crews began to think in terms of efficiency and crew productivity increased. If a crew member wasn’t pulling his load, the other crew members would have him replaced.

What happened?

BFLLC has incorporated lots of simple yet smart changes these last two years. As a result, sales have gone from $2 million in 2019 to $4 million today. More importantly, the bottom line has improved significantly from the low single digits to over 20%. Rob and Aileen purchased a new building and yard for the company and the future looks bright.

Back to the future.

Before 9/11, Rob was driving an 18-wheeler throughout New England. After the attacks, the trucking industry collapsed, and Rob was out of work. He didn’t want to be at the mercy of someone else, so he started BFLLC with his father in 2004. Shortly thereafter, Rob and Aileen started a family. It wasn’t easy, but with a lot of hard work, belief in themselves and belief in the American dream, they built a successful company. Just as important, they were willing to listen to Chris Maroun, a highly respected fellow entrepreneur, and get some outside help for their business.

Implementing an incentive system, in addition to managing your budget properly, helps make sure crews are thinking like you in terms of efficiency.

The accurate pricing that we implemented at BFLLC combined with the production incentives not only added significantly to the bottom line, but they also made the company easier to operate and manage. We didn’t pull a rabbit out of a hat. We simply implemented some smart methods of doing things. This is what good systems do. With these in place, Rob and Aileen believe that within five or so years, they should reach $8-$10 million in annual sales. They now have big plans to pursue big dreams for themselves, their two children and their employees.

Conclusion.

To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to have good character. Good character is what it’s all about. You have to be creative, diligent, persevering, full of faith that you can succeed, customer (other) oriented, frugal and much more. You also have to love people and love challenges. It takes great people like Rob and Aileen to make great companies.

This is not only what makes companies great but it’s also what makes America great. Some fences keep people in. Others keep people out. The fences at Brentwood Fence do both for their customers.

However, for the team at Brentwood Fence, their fences don’t just provide boundaries; they provide unlimited potential for a very bright future.

As anyone who has ever worked for a toxic boss knows, destructive leadership is not just difficult for morale, but it can affect the performance and effectiveness of the whole enterprise.

There is no one best style strategy to leadership and even the best leaders can make mistakes. But because companies need inspiring leaders to move business forward, it’s important to recognize that if you expect your team to deliver at the highest levels, one thing is certain: your people will follow the behaviors you display first.

There are 5 fatal flaws of poor leadership. Here’s how to identify and overcome them:

1. Self-interest. ‘Me not we’ can happen at all levels of a company, not just at the top, and it ends up being the single biggest obstacle to a healthy workplace. It’s difficult for self-interest to thrive if there is transparency. Establish transparency by being upfront, owning mistakes and giving credit to others. The more you acknowledge and value the work of your team, the more motivated your team will be to go over and above for you.

2. Failure to pioneer change. You hired people because they’re smart, capable, creative and have the right skills. Don’t micromanage their competency or push back because you want to see if another company try it first. If you want to be future-forward, set aside a budget for innovation and invite your employees to bring their ideas to the table.

For example, when iPads were introduced, progressive leaders gave them to their managers, who explored ways to use an untested tool to help their clients and their companies. A leader with destructive behavior would be the one who waited and ended up falling behind.

Recognizing these common leadership mistakes can keep your team motivated, respected and eager to perform.

It’s the same with robotics, when, in fact, autonomous technologies are a competitive advantage for customer and employee retention. Alienating a tech-forward generation of potential new hires and customers who’ve grown up leading digitally-driven lives will result in people motivated to go elsewhere.

3. Eating your seed corn. Owners who live too high off their company is a recipe for disaster. An example would be an owner who draws a high salary when the company needs the capital for growth. This saddles companies with debt, which limits growth, and they go out of business.

4. Lack of financial accountability. New landscape businesses have a high failure rate. Companies that don’t develop efficient reporting procedures or have a poor chart of accounts make it next to impossible to measure progress on goals. Consider retaining a team of advisors with industry and systems experience, or use available National Association of Landscape Professionals resources to build a high-performing back end.

When it comes to billing snow, for example, if the customer is not billed within a day or two but rather three weeks later, customers can forget that the storm was as severe as it was and protest the cost. That becomes negotiated with the company, giving up billing to just get paid. Hold the whole chain — managers to foremen — accountable to check and verify hourly data. Having the office try to figure it out after the fact results in added and unnecessary overhead costs.

5. Lack of trust. If your employees can’t trust each other, then any efforts to tell your team and your customers about your culture of trust will fail miserably. Trust begins with leaders who build trust and mutual respect with each person on the team. Trust is especially important as a critical core competency for team expectations. Work out the trust behaviors that mean the most to your people, tie them into your initiatives, purpose and values, be clear on expectations and create a culture of aligned interest that drives a ‘one firm’ focus. Trust-busters and silos of self-interest can result in missed deadlines, missed opportunities, poor customer and intercompany relationships, and lost loyalty.

As you plan for next year, plan to make your workplace culture your greatest strength. Remember, it’s not a one-and-done deal. Be vigilant against cracks in alignment, calibrate for continuous improvement and address problems head on.