You've heard of IQ and probably EQ, emotional intelligence, but what about BQ, body intelligence? I hadn't heard of it until I interviewed today's guest, Lola Wright, the founding partner and co-CEO from Nathan Wright Landscape Design in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois. But she says that self-awareness and body intelligence are a key part of the culture that's helped them grow from two employees to 22, and helped them retain those people.
Lola shares a ton of valuable takeaways for improving your company culture, recruiting and retention, including how to stand out during your interview with potential employees so they feel a connection to your company and actually want to join your team, how hiring and managing around self-awareness actually creates more candor and direct communication, how their zero gossip policy helps team members resolve conflict quickly, and also, lessons learned, some of which I've learned myself, about what does not work when leading your team.
Hey, it's Jack Jostes, and welcome to The Landscaper's Guide podcast. Now, before we dive into this interview with Lola, I want to invite you to check out The Landscaper's Ultimate Guide to Recruiting. It's our brand new online course available exclusively at landscapersguide.com/courses. So check that out in our show notes if you're curious about how to really dial in your marketing and recruiting to fill your pipeline with new candidates this season. Check it out. Landscapersguide.com/courses.
Today, I'm excited to have Lola Wright, who is the founding partner co-CEO at Nathan Wright Landscape Design. They're a landscape company with offices in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois. I met Lola in the audience at iLandscape when I presented there, this February 2022. It was a great conference and Lola was one of the most active audience members with lots of great questions and comments. So I'm excited to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your background and what kind of work do you all do at Nathan Wright Landscape?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, well, our background is really in perennials. My husband's a registered landscape architect and a trained architect. My personal background is in banking and real estate. I then spent many years running a nonprofit in Chicago. And when COVID hit and my husband's business at the time was really ripe to explode, it was an opportunity for me to join the business on a day-to-day basis. I had served as an advisor for many years, and so jumped in and grew the business quite considerably. We doubled the business in 2020 and in 2021. We intend on growing the business by doubling in revenue and in clients in 2022. And it's been a fast and furious learning in an industry that is very different than the nonprofit world and during a really difficult time on the planet and in the human experience. So it's been wild.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, you said that you went from two employees to 22 in a year. How did you do that? I mean, that sounds really great and really hard.
How to stand out in your interview with job applicants -- so they feel a connection to your company and want to join YOUR team
Lola Wright:
Yeah. Well, much of my professional work prior to joining Nathan Wright Landscape Design was doing organizational consulting and really supporting the people and culture elements of businesses. So I brought that to Nathan Wright Landscape Design, and I think without that, growing at that speed and at that scale would've been very challenging.
One of the things that we prioritize at the forefront is like, "Who are these people?" We really want to have personal relationships in a professional setting to the best of our ability and as appropriate as is necessary. If people are just a cog in a wheel, they'll never be in it in the way that a small business really needs someone to be in it. And we don't really want to create something with people that we don't really know, like, and trust. So for us to grow from two people to 22 people has meant investing in who these human beings are in a really palpable way so that people feel like they matter, they're important.
Jack Jostes:
And I think the thought around work in the last two years... I don't know, in some ways, I thought it was weird that people were told that they were either essential or non-essential, just as a human being, somebody saying, "You're not essential and you can't work," would be really degrading. In the landscape industry, people were considered essential and they were able to continue working. And there are a lot of people though that didn't have that experience. Are you seeing people coming from a non-essential background into landscaping? And do you think that experience of being told they were non-essential factors into it?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I mean, I think that there have been a few challenges in the shifting labor market. We have team members that have joined from outside of the industry. So there's a very steep learning curve. We also have team members who got used to working from home because on the design side of things, you could do that. Except that it created a fair amount of friction when some of our team members literally don't have the option to work from home because of the nature of the work. And it didn't feel good culturally to say, "Well, you get to stay at home and do yoga at lunch and wear your slippers all day while this other person is busting their tail in the field." So we've had to navigate all these different circumstances.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. Well, do you find that the people who are out doing landscape installations or construction or maintenance in the field, do they envy the designers who are able to work from home? Or what kind of conflict comes up there?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I mean, I think the interesting thing about a design, build, and maintain business, particularly in this industry, is there is a wide spectrum of class issues that show up. So I think it's completely normal that someone would be like, "Wait a second, so this person's making more money than me and doesn't have to leave their house and gets to enjoy making their own lunch in their own kitchen. That does not..." Yeah, and it's just the nature of how our economy is designed in this country. Labor rates are different than administrative rates and design rates. And as altruistic as I have been to try to democratize some of that, I can't contend with an entire economy. So it's required a lot of conversation among the team. Hey, are you willing to come into the office, not because your job requires it, but because it's in service of the culture of the group and it creates a sense of collaboration and teamwork in a way that you being in the comfort of your home, which we can accommodate, just doesn't provide?
Jack Jostes:
So how does that kind of pan out from a scheduling standpoint? How often are people coming into the office and meeting with everyone else? And are they still working from home some of the time or most of the time? Logistically, what's that look like from a scheduling standpoint?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, our office hours, our sort of traditional office hours are 8:00 to 5:00. Our crews show up at 7:30. We're packing up trucks and out the door by 8:00. We have two offices, one in Chicago, which is more of our maintenance side of the business, and then we have have a design office in Oak Park. And as of April 1st, everyone will be expected to either be in the office or in the field.
Again, it's like I get... Believe me, I love the value of being at home in my slippers, working at my computer as much as anyone. And it just doesn't create the level of collaboration and team that can occur in this field in particular. I always say to our team, "Look, if we were a tech startup, you could be at home. But we're an analog business, and an analog business needs to be in physical relationship with one another."
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I agree that not all businesses are the same and remote work may not work for everyone. I'll share that my company is fully remote and we've been that way since six months prior to COVID. So September of 2019, we were very fortunate to get out of a very expensive five-year commercial lease. And I don't know if you've ever read a commercial lease, but you should before you sign it, very closely. I didn't realize the teeth of it.
So my experience was that I had half of my staff was fully remote out of the state even, and then I had a lot of staff in Colorado. And basically, no one wanted to come into the office. And then when we did, we got on Zoom with our clients who are all over the country. Eventually, we closed it. What's relevant here is it was way easier in the end to have a fully remote culture than some sort of kind of hybrid thing for me. I know that everyone's trying to figure this out and I commend you for making a decision around it and I want to hear from you in the future to see does this all in the office or the field culture, how does that impact your culture. I'm really curious.
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I mean, I have a consulting business with people I work with all over the country. So I have a whole other business, and everybody's remote in that business. And in that industry, that completely makes sense.
We did a great job at Nathan Wright Landscape Design of working through the limitations or just the conditions of relying on Zoom. Thank God for that. And at this point, it just feels like the nature of the business is on the earth, in the ground, and we want to create an equitable experience among team members. That means we all have to show up in person.
How Body Intelligence Relates To A Landscape Company
Jack Jostes:
Great. So one of the things you and I talked about before the interview was in company culture was something I've honestly never heard of, which is body intelligence. So you were talking about whole body intelligence. So just tell me more about that. So there are three different kinds. What are they and how does this make sense in a in the earth landscape company, right?
Lola Wright:
Yes.
Jack Jostes:
Where you've got people working together, building things, planting things, growing things.
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I mean, there are three primary centers of intelligence in the human experience. One is our IQ, which is what we're most familiar with. From the neck up. We value it heavily in our culture and it serves us very well. Another is EQ, emotional intelligence, which has become increasingly popular and familiar. So when I feel sad or angry, scared, or I feel joy. What we're learning more and more about as a culture is body intelligence, the wisdom and the cues and clues of your body.
So at the beginning of many of our meetings, we'll start with a practice called let's get present. We go through those three steps, what body sensations are showing up in and on the body, what feelings are here, and what thought is here now. So if I were to do that right now, I would say swirling in my belly, tightening in my shoulders, buzzing in my cheeks. I'm not telling you why that's happening. I'm not giving you a story. It's just what are the sensations happening in and on the body. Feeling states in this now moment, scared and joy. Great. Next thought, I wonder if Jack thinks this is a very weird exercise. So those are the three steps.
The reason we do that is because if we are disconnected from what's happening in our body, we're missing... I mean, even from a sales perspective, your body is a kinesthetic tool to have you understand the person before you, to understand yourself. So self-awareness is just a huge foundation of our business. We use BQ, body intelligence, EQ, emotional intelligence, and IQ, your intellectual quotient or your cognitive intelligence, to inform our communication as team members. So if someone gets triggered or reactive, or something becomes inflamed among team members or with a client, it's like, "Hang on a second. Take a breath. What body sensations are here now? What feelings are here now? And what thought are you having?" It creates a little bit of space so that you don't just react.
Jack Jostes:
So are you actually saying that and doing that with your employees?
Lola Wright:
Yes.
Jack Jostes:
I'm just curious, are they on board with this? Are they like, "Right on, let's talk about this."? I'm trying to imagine this in a landscape environment.
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I mean, I-
Jack Jostes:
I'm sure some people have been like, "Hey, this is great." Do some people resist it? How is it actually panning out in the real world with your people?
How Hiring And Managing Around Self-Awareness Creates More Candor
Lola Wright:
I mean, I would say overwhelmingly, we've attracted people who I think are into it. And we can figure that out pretty quickly in the interviewing process. So we're probably paying attention to it. I mean, really what we want are people who are tuned in to self-awareness, not just walking robots. For the kind of business that we do, we need people who are tuned in. We need people who are self-aware. So overwhelmingly, people have been into the practice.
There have been a handful of people that are like, "Wow, it's an intimate invitation to ask someone what are they feeling and what's happening on and in their body." That's a level of connection that is not typical in most business environments and even more atypical in the landscaping industry, I've found.
Jack Jostes:
I can't honestly think of a time in business where somebody's asked me that or where I've asked them that. I haven't thought about it. Usually, that comes up maybe with a doctor or a chiropractor. Tell me more about why is this important to succeeding in working at Nathan Wright Landscape Design. How does that help make better landscapes or increase profitability or increase morale? Why is it part of your culture?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, so we all have a reptilian brain, and when we get scared, we respond from our reptilian brain. But we actually have access to higher states of consciousness. That's what we're wanting to encourage people to access. The value that it brings to the business, we have less drama among team members. So people are able to have increased candor with one another. Some of our practices orient around radical responsibility, curiosity, feelings, candor, so tell me what you're really dealing with, no gossip, and integrity. So those are like six core organizing principles that we encourage the team to live by, and it reduces drama between them. So it's like, "Cut the crap. Let's just speak right to it. What's going on here and now?" And you can speak the truth and say it with love. We really believe that.
Jack Jostes:
I was just going to say, so you're finding that this leads to a more direct conversation between team members?
How Their Zero Gossip Policy Helps Team Members Resolve Conflicts Quickly
Lola Wright:
Yes. And we have a zero tolerance policy for gossip. We had a circumstance happen just the other day where I was getting a little bit from this team member, a little bit from this team member, and all of a sudden, there were like four circles going on and I'm like, "Nope, that's it. Let's all sit down. I want you to say exactly what you told me in the way you said it, because it didn't involve me, it involved the person across the table." And it was awkward at the onset because human beings are not always used to being that forthcoming and that candid with one another. But by the end of the meeting, it was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I got that off my chest. Now I'm not walking around resenting you, my fellow team member. I actually can work in a more cohesive fashion because the junk is out of the way, and we can carry forward."
Jack Jostes:
I really like that. It reminds me of a book that we've read at Ramblin Jackson and that we use is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Are you familiar with that?
Lola Wright:
I've just heard you reference it on your podcast.
Jack Jostes:
Okay. Well, it's really good. Part of it is about creating trust and helping facilitate accountability and embracing conflict. So we've done a lot of exercises to do that to create more direct conversations. One of our core values is raise the stakes, and sometimes raising-
Lola Wright:
I heard you talk about that.
Jack Jostes:
... the stakes can involve being really direct with people about things that aren't working. And I found that when we've done those exercises, it has really fueled the growth of the company. So how do you interview for that? I'm curious. When you're growing from two to 22 people, how do you interview for self-awareness?
Lola Wright:
Yeah. I mean, there have been times where we've literally introduced this practice in an interview, and you can tell pretty quickly based on someone's response if they're open to anywhere even remotely close to this.
What we find a lot in our interviewing process is people are like, "Wow, I just appreciate being connected with as a human being, not just a tool for productivity." So we're really interested in like, "What brings you alive? What do you love to do in life? If you could wave a magic wand in this now moment and have your career look any way you want it to, what would you be doing?" Sometimes just those questions of getting to know someone at a deeper level beyond just a very rote job description creates a whole different quality of conversation.
Jack Jostes:
And one of the results that you've told me about from focusing on culture in this way was a story of somebody who was offered a really high-end job in your industry at... Maybe it was a top... I can't remember who it was. Tell me a little bit about that and why they ended up deciding to come and work with you.
Lola Wright:
Yeah. We recently hired a guy who we met 10 years ago. In the process of interviewing, he was pretty forthcoming like, "Hey, just so you know, I've had several interviews with this very prestigious firm in Chicago. I'll keep you posted on how that goes." At the end of the day, he ended up accepting our offer and we asked him why he made that decision, and he said, "There was a quality to the relationship that got developed in a pretty short period of time that had me believe this was not just some corporate cookie-cutter factory of a landscape design and build firm. There was something special happening here." And that's ultimately what you want. You want people to resonate with who you are and the things that matter to you.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I agree. I recently created a course around recruiting, and part of it was around creating culture and core values. What you're saying, I think, overlaps a lot with your core values are an extension of you ultimately as an individual and as the leaders of the company, and you've got to attract people who share those values. How do you attract enough applicants? How did you get enough people to apply where... I mean, I'm assuming... Or let me ask, rather, is when you find people that maybe they have some of those landscape skills, but maybe they totally lack the self-awareness piece and they don't want that relationship. Do you just pass on them? Or what do you do when people like that come through your interview process?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I mean, I fundamentally believe that human beings want this. So I sort of show up to the relationship with that assumption. Our maintenance leader has worked in the industry for 15 years and has been brought to tears on multiple occasions, working with us over the last year. He simply stated, "No one's ever treated me this way. I've always just been the guy in the field." There's a level of humanity that we've brought to our work that I think is incredibly compelling, particularly in an industry where there is a pretty significant caste system. If we just call that out, there's a pretty significant caste system that exists in this industry. People want to be treated as human beings, not just quote, end quote, "laborers." That doesn't feel good to anybody.
Jack Jostes:
I agree. And I've seen a shift towards calling that part of your team frontline workers is one phraseology I've seen that I think is... They are doing labor, but I think the way that you talk about the people who are doing that work, they do care and they do notice.
And I've recently... Part of what I was doing in Illinois was interviewing the employees of one of my clients, and that was all they talked about was how they were treated and how the culture there was supportive of their family life. Some of them played soccer. It was great. I was like, "Right on. This company's doing it well."
For people listening who are like, "Wow, this sounds... Okay, I hadn't thought about body intelligence. I didn't like the idea at first, but now that I'm hearing that it actually increases candor and it helps solve some of the conflict and things like that, but I've never done it." How can people learn about this? So people who are curious about this, maybe they're wanting to read up on it or listen to a podcast or watch a video, are there any people or books or anything that you might recommend for people?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, one of my great friends and mentors is a guy named Jim Dethmer. He wrote the book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. It's informed a lot of our work. I'm trained in that methodology. It diffuses what could otherwise be an attack or a blame or a resentment that's withheld, and it's just like, "Hey, if you were to really know me over here on Planet Lola," as I say, "clenching my jaw, tightening my shoulders, feeling status anger, and I'm having the thought, 'We have a broken agreement on our hands.'" That's very different than like, "Well, what the heck were you doing? Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah." It just neutralizes it a bit. It gives me permission to have my experience and it gives me an outlet to more effectively communicate it.
Jack Jostes:
I like that. Do you have any other comments on culture, things that are working that you want to share?
Lola Wright:
Well, I will tell you one of the things that's not worked.
Jack Jostes:
Good. Yeah, what has not worked is equally important, if not more.
Lola Wright:
Yeah, I think sometimes we've tried to be overly diplomatic and we've actually gotten feedback from our team like, "Hey, don't be afraid to bring a little more boss energy." And I actually was listening to one of your episodes, Jack, where you talked about do you make decisions based on consensus. I think that Nathan and I are sort of two ends of a spectrum and we both led nonprofit efforts. So we've had to sort of find the right finesse for when we bring a very clear decision to the team versus just leaving it overly ambivalent and ambiguous. So I think that that's been a real practice for us.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I think... And especially, I don't know, working with other people and I've worked with my wife too, and that adds a whole other dynamic to it. What has worked for me and for us in that department was actually creating job descriptions and role clarity and letting people know that this is how these decisions are going to be made, and always listening and collecting feedback. And ultimately, I think people are looking for you to make a decision-
Lola Wright:
Totally.
Jack Jostes:
... a lot of the time. And not making a decision or trying to get consensus, it's just disastrous.
Lola Wright:
Yes. Yeah, it creates a level of chaos that's not settling for anyone. And what we've seen is people just are like, "Just tell me. Just tell me what you want me to do." And I'm like, "Great." I'm actually really good at that, so usually, I'm tempering that tendency in myself. And having their permission, not that I need it, but that's sort of the process of getting buy-in from them. Like, "Hey, great. Now they trust me enough to say, 'Please just tell me.'" I'd much rather create that sort of level of collaboration than just a top-down influence. So it's a practice. We don't have anything mastered. We're just getting back up the next day and trying again.
Jack Jostes:
Well, Lola, thanks for coming on the show. I learned a ton about body intelligence and conscious leadership that I'm curious about, because I've had many people come on the show that are talking about these things that I've mentioned. If you check out the recruiting tab on our podcast page, I have a bunch of interviews with people who are talking about similar things, and they're about consciousness and... Who knew about body intelligence? I didn't. So thanks so much for coming on the show. Where can people who want to learn more about you or connect with you, where can we connect?
Lola Wright:
Yeah, well, check out nathanwrightlandscape.com if you're in the Chicago market or you want to see what someone's doing with a plant-forward landscape design and build business. My name is Lola Wright, and my website's lolawright.com. Please check me out there. I do organizational consulting and would love to hear about any conscious leadership practices or mindful business efforts that you're making. And follow us on Instagram. I'm very active on Instagram, @lolapwright. You can also check us out at Nathan Wright Landscape on Instagram.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I definitely follow your landscape business. I'll be sure to follow your consulting business. I'll put those links in the show notes for people who are listening. Thanks again for coming on this show. And everyone, thank you for listening.
Well, I definitely learned a lot from Lola in today's interview, and I'm really curious about conscious leadership. Some of the things that she sent to me, I'm going to add in the show notes so you can check them out too.
Now, if you're really looking to level up your recruiting and retention, I invite you to check out my brand new course, The Landscaper's Ultimate Guide to Recruiting, where we share our exact system that we've used at Ramblin Jackson to grow from just a handful of people to over 12 full-time employees, and how we've used it to attract over a thousand applicants. I share how I'm using this framework with many of my clients and they're getting real results in the landscape industry. So we share fill in the blank templates. We have instructions on how to write job advertisements that actually get a response. We have content around leadership. We have the exact spreadsheet that we use to manage over 700 applicants. So this is really a system that you can use and download the tools and start using right away. So check it out at landscapersguide.com/courses.
Again, my name's Jack Jostes. Thanks so much for checking out The Landscaper's Guide podcast. I look forward to talking to you next week.