How delegating work helped one landscape company grow

Caring for a child with a rare genetic disorder is difficult enough. But trying to do so while also running your multi-million-dollar business may seem impossible.

Tim Johnson II, president of North Carolina’s Tim Johnson Landscaping, is doing just that though. His six-year-old son TJ is living with DEGS1, a type of leukodystrophy. The condition caused TJ to have to undergo a major surgery on his hips, which caused the family to spend about a month away from their home, and away from the business, in Philadelphia to receive the care TJ desperately needed.

“The surgery was for both of his hips as they were dislocated due to his muscle tone,” he says. “He had about a six-hour surgery and about five of those hours were on his left hip.”

While he was 400 miles away, it meant Johnson had to focus on delegating work to his leadership team and others within the company’s staff of 90 employees. They had to step up to the plate and run the business. He says this seemed scary at first but turned out to be a great learning experience and even brought the company to the next level.

“We talk a lot about Tim Johnson Landscaping being a family and we look out for each other when we need it — and that’s what we’ve always done,” he says. “Fortunately, we have the team and the technology in place to run like this. We live in a world where remote work is not as common. Maybe it is in upper-management levels, but it’s certainly not something our field people experience on a regular basis. Having our team understand that just because I’m not in the office in Statesville, or in the office in Charlotte, I’m still working and I’m still available has been something we had to establish upfront.

“One thing COVID taught us is that, in many ways, you can work from anywhere and we’ve got tools in place to work from anywhere,” Johnson adds.

Expect the unexpected

Johnson admits that these extended absences are nothing new — as they frequently travel to Philly for TJ’s care — but this was the longest he’d ever been away from the business.

The key to making sure all systems were firing without him? Preparation.

“Fortunately, it was not a surprise. We knew for several months that it was coming,” he says of the time away. “We’ve also worked our way into that. We’ve been going up there about every 12 weeks for the last two years already. Generally, it’s a day trip, or an overnight and then a week in the summer for extended clinic visits.”

Though Johnson admits nothing truly prepares you for a month away from the office, he says having procedures and systems in place makes it easier. Johnson says his business is a big proponent of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System).

“I don’t think I knew what I was doing to prepare to be gone for that amount of time because I had never been gone for that amount of time,” he says. “In the month leading up, it was about being very intentional. We’re an EOS company, so we have weekly leadership Level 10 meetings. I was very intentional in those meetings to ensure everyone was up to date with what I was working on, and I made a real push to close as many loops as I could before I left. But I really said, ‘OK this is where I’m at and I need you guys to take it from here.’”

Despite being stressful at times, Johnson says he’s extremely thankful for the opportunity to step away from the business as it strengthened his understanding of leadership, delegating work and so much more.

“There have been so many ways that this has been a blessing for us, as a family — but it’s also, in many ways, been a good thing for the company, too,” he says. “I am very much a doer. In EOS, I’m the visionary but I’m also a weird mix of integrator, too. One of the things EOS has done for us is it really forced me to embrace the visionary role and then these extended times out of the office have pushed me even further into that.

“Through the EOS process and through the process of traveling for his care — it’s forced me to get out of my own way and not be the bottleneck in the business,” Johnson adds.

Johnson will be the first to say he’s not always been good at delegating, but knowing he was going to be gone for so long forced him to get better at it.

“I handed a certain number of things off ahead of time because I just knew that if somebody else was going to take it to the finish line, they might as well take it and run with it,” he says. “We were just very intentional about where we were at and what the coverages were and we had the conversations so that if there was something they hadn’t done before or something outside of their comfort zone, I had enough time to make sure they had everything they needed to make sure they were successful.”

Passing the baton

Helping lift up others and get them comfortable taking on more has always been an important aspect of Johnson’s duties as president he shares.

“It’s not very different than how I view my role on a daily basis,” he says. “Any owner has sales responsibilities…but I really think at this point, my primary responsibility has to revolve around being a facilitator for our team by making sure the leaders in our company have the tools they need to be successful.”

Finding the right people for delegating work has been a long time coming, but Johnson says his leadership team knocked it out of the park while he was away.

“We’ve been building a leadership team to grow this company, and they stepped up to the plate and took care of things,” he says. “They almost stepped up to the plate to a place of uncomfort for me.

“That first week when we had surgery, they really tried to almost insulate me so that I could focus on my family and not worry about what was happening here,” Johnson adds. “To the point to when we first got released from the hospital, I was like ‘Alright guys, I know it’s not this quiet — what’s going on? Catch me up.’ But I appreciated that, and we’ve had other people on the team who’ve had personal issues and things like that so it’s a mutual respect and consideration across our team.”

There was a mutual understanding back at headquarters that there wasn’t a fire they couldn’t put out on their own that first week and allow Johnson to focus solely on TJ and his recovery.

“I was, for all intents and purposes, completely dark that first week,” he recalls. “Surgery was on Tuesday, and we were in the hospital through Friday. They knew if they needed me, they could get ahold of me, but they took a certain amount of pride in saying, ‘We’re going to handle this. He doesn’t need to deal with it.’ And they did — they did a phenomenal job.”

Johnson says most of the next two weeks, he’d work a few hours here and there, with his travel monitors set up at the kitchen table as TJ was resting and recovering.

It turns out, Johnson’s work was more prolific being able to step back and focus on the more high-level tasks than getting caught up in the day-to-day issues at the office.

“Being isolated in the way that I was — I was almost able to be more productive because I had fewer distractions,” he acknowledges.

Steps for success

If his experience has taught him anything, Johnson says the best thing a company can do is build a strong management team that is confident in running the business when needed.

“Build a team that can lead your company, and build that intentionally, before you have to use it,” he warns. “It becomes much more difficult if you haven’t prepared for that situation ahead of time. Nobody plans on having family emergencies or having health issues — nobody plans on the things that pull you away from your business. But if you’re not proactively preparing your team to lead, they won’t be ready to take care of your business if you have to step away.”

Even before TJ’s health struggles caused the family to make so many trips to Philadelphia, Johnson says he and his father, Tim Johnson Sr., made it a point to step away from the business completely for at least one week a year to give the team the opportunity to lead without them.

“Step 1 is go take a vacation and actually turn your phone off — as crazy as that sounds,” he says.

Johnson remembers a trip he took with his wife years ago. Despite being on vacation, Johnson admits he was constantly on his phone checking in, speaking with clients and putting out fires from a distance.

“My wife finally looked at me, and she’s very patient with me, and said, ‘You’ve worked all day yesterday and today and you haven’t been able to enjoy any of the things we’ve gone to do. You’ve stood outside on the phone for half of them.’ It really sank in,” he says. “I came home and talked with my dad, who was much more involved in the business at the time, and we agreed we were both going to take a week-long vacation every year and we’re going to truly step away from the business.

“I figured if we couldn’t do that, then we should probably just go punch a clock for somebody else,” Johnson adds. “We really forced ourselves to do it.”

Johnson adds that growth is great — but growth can’t be achieved unless everyone is ready to make it happen. That means giving employees the opportunity to take on more and flourish.

“People are capable of so much more than we often allow them to do,” he says. “When we came back, we realized those guys didn’t need us holding their hands the whole time. There were no fires that we came back to that weren’t handled while we were gone. You’ve got to let these people step up, lead and give them the runway to run with it,.”

That approach is paying off — as Tim Johnson Landscaping is already having a banner year and is expecting another one in 2026. The company is aiming to hit the $10 million mark by the end of next season.

“I’m very excited,” Johnson says. “I think we’re ready to take off like a rocket ship. We’ve got a lot of really great momentum. We’re going to have a very aggressive budget for next year and we’re very excited about where we’re headed. I’m hoping for 25- to 30% growth next year.”

The author is senior editor of Lawn & Landscape.