This is a great and informative article. About it, I have two questions.
- Firstly, with the firefighter vs gardener, are they mutually exclusive? Because wouldn't the the best gardener be able to put out any fires in their crop?
- Secondly, with the rudder metaphor. You say that a little rudder farther away from the rocks is better than a lot of rudder close to them. However, would there be a point where the best decision would be no rudder at all, and to let the ship crash? (an example that could be used here would be the titanic, where she would not have sank had she hit the iceberg head on, and the last minute turn was one of the factors that doomed her)
Love these questions, you have really taken the metaphors seriously, which is exactly what they are there for.
You are absolutely right that, in real life, the best “gardener” sometimes does have to grab the hose and put out a fire; crisis management is a legitimate part of leadership, and there are moments where a deliberate “scupper the ship” choice – sacrificing one project, product or even role – is the least‑bad way to protect the wider crew.
The point of arguing for early, thoughtful intervention is that if you are tending the soil, watching for pests and checking the weather, you simply end up with far fewer fires and far fewer moments where drastic sacrifice is your only option. In leadership terms that means paying attention to early warning signs in performance, culture and workload so you can have a difficult conversation in March instead of announcing a restructure in October.
Building on your Titanic example, there are lots of ways they could have avoided being in danger at all: sailing at a more conservative speed in known ice fields, taking iceberg warnings seriously, designing for more resilience, running proper drills and having enough lifeboats. Organisations do the same thing when they slow down enough to question impossible deadlines, listen to risk data and build in contingency, instead of assuming they are “unsinkable” until the hull is already torn open.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions! Youve cleared up everything I wanted to know. I very much like how you use the metaphors to explain these subjects.
This is a great and informative article. About it, I have two questions.
- Firstly, with the firefighter vs gardener, are they mutually exclusive? Because wouldn't the the best gardener be able to put out any fires in their crop?
- Secondly, with the rudder metaphor. You say that a little rudder farther away from the rocks is better than a lot of rudder close to them. However, would there be a point where the best decision would be no rudder at all, and to let the ship crash? (an example that could be used here would be the titanic, where she would not have sank had she hit the iceberg head on, and the last minute turn was one of the factors that doomed her)
Love these questions, you have really taken the metaphors seriously, which is exactly what they are there for.
You are absolutely right that, in real life, the best “gardener” sometimes does have to grab the hose and put out a fire; crisis management is a legitimate part of leadership, and there are moments where a deliberate “scupper the ship” choice – sacrificing one project, product or even role – is the least‑bad way to protect the wider crew.
The point of arguing for early, thoughtful intervention is that if you are tending the soil, watching for pests and checking the weather, you simply end up with far fewer fires and far fewer moments where drastic sacrifice is your only option. In leadership terms that means paying attention to early warning signs in performance, culture and workload so you can have a difficult conversation in March instead of announcing a restructure in October.
Building on your Titanic example, there are lots of ways they could have avoided being in danger at all: sailing at a more conservative speed in known ice fields, taking iceberg warnings seriously, designing for more resilience, running proper drills and having enough lifeboats. Organisations do the same thing when they slow down enough to question impossible deadlines, listen to risk data and build in contingency, instead of assuming they are “unsinkable” until the hull is already torn open.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions! Youve cleared up everything I wanted to know. I very much like how you use the metaphors to explain these subjects.
Great article. Managers who are good at putting out fires also tend to be arsonists