Understanding Growth

We are on the e-mail list of our Congressman, Harry Teague (right). A few months ago Representative Teague sent a nice e-mail to his constituents asking many of us what we felt like was the single most important thing Congress could do to make things in our businesses better. Naturally, it was hard to narrow down the list of all the things we would have Congress do to a single item. Finally, after giving the excellent question plenty of thought it dawned on us. We suggested he urge Congress to adjourn for five years.
    The first priority of medical care is “Do no harm.” And based on the track record of this Congress it figures to be easier to ask them to do nothing, rather than try to hope they get something right.

    After we sent the message we began to think perhaps we had been too harsh. We experienced an epiphany this morning that convinced us a congressional adjournment is exactly what we need. It began when my wife (Kristi) called me to back porch to look at a plant we thought we had killed earlier this year. Literally, every leaf on the poor plant had turned yellow, drooped and fell off four months ago. When what we had to take care of had finally been reduced to a tall skinny pot full of dirt, I took it upon myself to admit failure and take the darn pot to the sun room and leave it there. I wanted all reminders of our failure out of sight and out of mind. The problem with growing house plants is we are not exactly experts. We are business people not horticulturists. As such we haven’t studied up on house plants and we really don’t know how much water and/or fertilizer is needed to insure growth. Just above is a picture of the pot we found in the sun room four months after I abandoned it. Notice it has two substantially new green shoots coming out of the top. The new leaves should start to unfold soon. In all the time the pot has been sitting in the sun room we have not done a thing. In effect, we adjourned all the programs we were using to "help" make the plant grow. Apparently, like most businesses that distribute our living standards by hiring workers, this plant simply wanted us to leave it alone. Naturally, because we were there this morning we were tempted to put the plant back in the house under our watchful eye. But of course we thought better of that idea and simply decided to remain adjourned.

Understanding Growth