Editor's Focus: Dec. 1997

Autonomy - the fact or condition of functioning independently without the control of others.

To some, the word ‘autonomy’ could be viewed as a type of science. That seems to be the case at Environmental Care, where the industry’s largest landscape maintenance company has indeed developed the art of delegating authority into a science.

When deciding on a company to examine in a series of feature articles for this issue, ECI emerged as a logical choice because of its size and the success it has enjoyed since its inception in 1970. At the same time, we had concerns that the size would preclude most of the industry from being able to identify with the position ECI finds itself in and the issues it deals with.

We didn’t have to spend too much time talking with the corporate managers at ECI before it was clear how much they could teach any contractor, big or small, or any business, for that matter - especially when it comes to structuring management.

Empowerment is certainly a corporate buzzword these days, and I imagine most managers like to think that they’ve empowered the individuals working for them. At the same time, individuals struggle with the reality that to free a company to grow to its potential - whatever that may be - they must entrust its success to others. Sometimes that means believing in people new to the company or from outside the industry who weren’t around in the days the next paycheck wasn’t such a sure thing.

As one contractor said to us this year, “When I turned over control of one of our divisions, there were sleepless nights because I was wondering what the company needed me for.”

At ECI, the corporate officers have accepted that they are now in fact support staff. Yes, the president of the company is a key position, but it rarely generates revenue like a technician providing the actual service does.

Instead, at some point in every business’s life, the position of president evolves from an operations focus to more of a systems focus. It becomes that person’s responsibility to make sure the operations personnel have the tools they need to be a success.

At ECI, this philosophy extends well beyond the service center managers, as each of them strive to provide the independence they enjoy to the managers working for them.

The goal is that each employee, regardless of his or her specific position, will take an increased feeling of ownership in their job. When the positions are defined so that an individual’s responsibility is maximized, ECI has found the employee much more proactive in driving the growth of the business they are responsible for.

As ECI grew into a multimillion dollar firm, delegating responsibility this way was necessary, but it’s still a valuable lesson for companies of any size to learn from.