How Horticulture Has Responded to COVID-19 With Strong Leadership
July 27, 2020 
If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it’s that strong leadership is one of the most important factors that can keep a business moving forward in the face of such a severe market disruption. That’s true for every industry, but it’s especially true for horticulture, as growers going into their busiest time of year were suddenly challenged with not knowing if their customers were still taking orders (or if they were even open), and with figuring out how to maintain the safety of their workforce while keeping them socially distanced in a controlled environment.
While we are by no means out of the woods when it comes to the coronavirus (Editor’s Note: wear a mask!), effective business leaders in the greenhouse industry are now focused on what they’ve learned from what was for many the most unique spring they’ve ever faced, and how they can effectively move forward.
This was the subject of a Town Hall panel during AmericanHort’s Cultivate’20 Virtual event. AmericanHort President and CEO Ken Fisher moderated a digital discussion that featured Jeremy Deppe of Spring Meadow Nursery; Rob Lando of AgriNomix; and Ann Tosovsky of Home Nursery, a Midwest family owned wholesale nursery grower.
Here’s a recap of the many highlights from the discussion.
Fisher: What has managing through this taught you about yourself as a leader/manager?
Deppe: We’ve built a debt-free business over the years; so when things go wrong, we don’t have to worry about money and can make long-term decisions. So, we learned you need to be financially ready. We started considering different scenarios for how the pandemic might play out back in March, so we could be ready as the outlook changed. Our team did a great job in being ready with all scenarios, which made it easier to manage.
Tosovsky: We always need to be ready for a curveball. Once you ID how you’re going to move forward and create a plan, that’s a vital part of being able to move forward successfully.
Lando: I’m thankful to be a part of this industry, and I tell our bankers we are recession-proof. But things looked rough at first. We all were punched in the gut when we got the stay-at-home orders. It felt like being a surfer in the ocean, and dealing with wave after wave. We’d never been through this before, but we had no choice.
Fisher: What did you find energizing about the situation, and what did you find stressful?
Lando: Our staff was energizing. We sent 19 people home. We were grateful to be classified as essential, although we still had a number of people work remotely. We had daily meetings on using the new communication tools available to us, and were able to keep doing business. The stressful part was making sure we didn’t screw things up, especially on the human resources side.
Deppe: The very stressful part was in being thankful we could stay open, but determining how that would be possible from an HR perspective. We were concerned with keeping both our plants and our employees healthy. Every decision was made in a COVID context. It almost became like another part-time job, with no playbook or prior experience to draw from. We were getting different advice every day from someone, and it all conflicted, which made it hard to make the best decision. So, I decided, “Let’s make the best decision for today.” The stress turned to energy around the middle of May, when the South opened up. We started hearing good reports from growers and retailers who were packed. Many said their e-commerce business was going crazy. We knew the scenario had changed from being down to being up, so we started making new decisions on business expansion.
Tosovsky: We honestly didn’t find anything energizing early on. But watching our retail customers who stayed open and got creative in selling, that was energizing. Teamwork was critical, and we are fortunate to have amazing people. We don’t have to tell them what to do; they know. Hopefully we’re through the worst of things. It’s easy to stress out about whether you’re making the right decision, so we learned we just need to use the best information in front of you.
Fisher: How did you change your management style and company culture, and are you back to normal in terms of personnel?
Lando: We have everyone back now, which is great because talking on Zoom is not the same as being in a hallway. My experience is that we’re not as efficient working remotely, and we lost the ability for everyone to know what’s going on. Our employees largely wanted to be back, but not all of them. We talked to our local health commissioner early on and invited them to visit us and see what we do. Those meetings helped calm us down. To not have personal interaction was tough. We looked for the fine line between being rational and strategic, and knowing and accepting that we are in a crisis.
Deppe: Our production teams were here, and the sales and marketing teams worked from home. I was more engaged with our production team simply because they were here in person, and we had to make a lot of decisions about stacking, deliveries, etc. I had less conversations with the sales and marketing teams, which is not a good thing because it makes you feel disconnected. I learned that it’s important not to think of office discussions as distractions.
Fisher: Are you working in a new normal with personal protective equipment, etc.?
Deppe: Yes, at least for the next few months. COVID-19 is still here, so we’ve been telling our team not to let their guard down and to continue social distancing and monitoring their health. The important thing is that the personal feelings of everyone on your team need to be accounted for, and you can’t tell them to feel safe if they don’t.
Fisher: How did you change the way you communicate with customers and suppliers?
Lando: Things didn’t change immediately, but then order cancellations started coming in as growers decided if they could survive. We didn’t want to keep selling when people didn’t even know what their future was. From a service standpoint, we still had to keep going. We were already doing a lot of automated support, and did it even more.
Tosovsky: We worked closely with our suppliers, even if they couldn’t come to our office. If we needed to tweak things, they were willing to work with us. As for our customers, we tried to take the same approach. As orders were cancelled, we told customers we’d figure things out. When the orders started coming back, they were coming in at odd times, so we had to be more flexible.
Deppe: We don’t ship a lot in March, so there weren’t a lot of effects then. But we explained to our sales team that these are our partners and friends, so now is not a time for hard sells, as they were worried about their own businesses. We moved orders back and reconnected later.
Fisher: Have you made modifications as a leader from a culture or behavior standpoint?
Deppe: We had to change how we communicate both our struggles and our successes. We sent out short weekly emails to our team with a few bullet points on what’s happening in other departments. The emails focused on the positives and included encouragements and tips on destressing. These have been very popular, so now we’re looking to make them even better
Lando: There can be a disjointed feeling when your team is separated. So we’re looking for ways to get our sales and production teams back involved with each other. We try to share everything we’re learning all the time. I asked our team whether we should halt business for a while as orders were getting canceled. Everyone said they wanted to stay and fight through it.
Tosovsky: Not being together took a toll on us. We can certainly do a better job in communicating. I did a survey and asked the team how we were doing, and we saw there was room for improvement.
Fisher: What are you seeing about what we’ve learned as an industry about production?
Lando: We’ve observed that shrink can be minimized, and consumers value our product more than we think. This was a great case study, and we’ve seen consumers are willing to pay more. Now, what can we learn from this?
Deppe: Baby Boomers are not the only ones driving us now. This new generation values plants more than we ever thought. COVID-19 has accelerated the trends we thought we’d see years down the road. I’m very energized now.
Tosovsky: We’re always cautiously optimistic. I might not be as optimistic as everyone, but there are good things ahead for our industry. We’re focused now on ways to improve profits, and what to tweak based on consumer demand.
Fisher: How are you planning for what may happen later this fall/winter? And what are you doing with sales planning and budgeting?
Tosovsky: We are not scaling back, and are in fact planning for growth. We just purchased more property.
Deppe: It’s hard to prepare for what’s coming next, if there’s a second wave . We’ve been through it and now we know what to expect, but that doesn’t make it easier. We are encouraging our team to stay vigilant and look for ways to improve. I’ve asked our own team to become leaders as well. I can’t make decisions for all of our department heads, and we want them to make safety decisions on their own so they can be ready.
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