Building a more engaged workforce starts with better conversations

By Emma Peterson. 

Through humor, business insights and real-world experience, Garrison Wynn showed Cultivate attendees how stronger communication can improve retention, performance and team alignment. 

Back in the second week of July (Saturday, July 11 – Tuesday, July 14, 2026 to be specific), AmericanHort brought thousands of horticulture, outdoor living and landscaping professionals together in Columbus, Ohio for their annual trade show – Cultivate! This show is the premier event for these markets, boasting more than 160+ educational sessions, a variety of hands-on workshops, production tours and events that are perfect for networking with peers.   

One standout session at the 2026 show was Garrison Wynn’s Jolt! Morning Keynote! Garrison is a well-known speaker, professional stand-up comedian and process designer. He got his start as a teen working on the world’s first video console gaming system, the Odyssey. From there, his career has taken him from stand-up tours to a role as the youngest department head in the history of a Fortune 500 company. Most recently, Garrison has been touring, presenting motivational business expertise to leading companies and organizations around the country. 

His Cultivate presentation, “Influence in Action,” centered on the importance of creating a culture of engagement within companies. In this presentation, Garrison highlights the following data, sharing, “engaged employees are 40x more likely to recommend & support your ideas & decisions, 43% more aware on the job (better safer record, less complacency and improved focus) and 86% more likely to be loyal to you, the customer each other, the vision and the culture.” In other words, people perform their best when they feel genuinely valued and appreciated.  

How do you help your employees feel important? Engage them! Garrison explained that building a culture of engagement is all about clarity. He recommends one specific question for owners and managers to keep asking, "Is there a question I didn’t ask you that you believe I should have?" 

By asking this, you not only find out if there is a lack of clarity in your expectations of employees, but it also shows that you want to listen and care about them. Overall, this is just one example of the points Garrison made about engagement during the keynote and attendees walked away “with simple yet powerful communication tools they can use to reduce resistance to change, improve behavior and strengthen retention [at their company].”