Q: I am a plant - or should be - but I agree that there could be a difficulty in being a plant AND being a top executive - under what circumstances do you think that its good to have a plant as an MD?


Plants on top

You find Plants at the top of incubator companies based upon innovative or creative products for the market place, in professions where art and design dominate and, very occasionally, where a company has foundered and run out of vision. In the latter, usually, the Plant has a short shelf life aimed at bringing in a Big Idea to turn round the company's fortunes.

Generally, Plants are much better utilised, as noted in the last blog, in an insulated region of company life, focusing on innovations in company structure or in creating new products, say in the R&D Department.

As a company grows, the progenitor - should this be a Plant - has to give more and more time to management rather than creativity. His/her creativity decreases as a consequence and the momentum of the enterprise falters. The art is to bring in Belbin's Shaper type with a leavening of the other types to handle the business while the MD sits back and monitors, tweaking here and there to ensure the kind of ethos with which s/he is most comfortable. Then s/he can get on with the exciting business of keeping the company at the forefront of novel products. ¶ 9:42 AM