Take Care of Your Golden Goose

I'm currently reading Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". It's hard to believe that I never read it before. The book is literally eating me alive. What do I mean by that? Do you know when you're out at night in the summer and the mosquitos start to attack? You lose the ability to move forward with your plans as you're consumed with the bugs. That's what is happening with this book. I read a chapter and literally have to stop reading and just stew!!! One concept from the book early one got my attention big time and it should get yours too. So listen up!

Did you ever hear the full story of the goose that laid the golden eggs in Aesop's Fables? Go back and look it up. Here's the summary. The farmer discovers a golden egg and gets rich from the daily production of gold from his Golden Goose. But the farmer gets greedy and wants more than one day's production. He decides to kill the goose thinking he can get all the eggs out of it. To his horror, he opens up his Golden Goose and finds no golden eggs. Even worse, the goose is destroyed as well. Stephen Covey relates this to the business that purchases an expensive machine. This new machine can create widgets better and faster than anything else out there, so the owner cranks its output to top capacity. He only cares about the output and therefore never schedules proper down time to maintain the machine. You know what happens next. Eventually, the machine crashes or fails. All production stops and widgets cease. The machine either requires a significant level of time and investment to repair and get it back on line. Or worse, the business has killed their Golden Goose and needs to buy a new one. In either example, they thought they were being productive and pumping out profits. But in the long run, they were worse off with the machine that breaks and would have been better off with their old reliable system of consistent widget production. What is the lesson here? Does the business decide to stay where they were? No, of course not. Progressive improvements in technology increase profits. However, the business needs to follow the maintenance instructions to ensure that the machine performs at a top level for a long time.

Are you catching my drift yet? Do you see the applications to your life and business? Here are a few for you to ponder.

• How well are you taking care of your machines? Are you doing the scheduled maintenance on your vehicles and vacuum cleaners? They will function for a long time if you take care of them. I learned the hard time, many times with MDT or Machine Down Time. Check out my episode, "Caught Red-Handed".
• How well are you taking care of your people? Do you offer your employees enough money, time off, benefits, flexibility to have proper balance in their life? Or do you burn out your people to crank out work while you claim to be an absentee owner? This is a harsh thing to say, but I have seen this in our industry. There are owners right now that are dumping so much on their teams or top people in the name of delegation. These star players are feeling more and more overwhelmed. And like placing one grain of rice on a scale at a time. Eventually, the scale tips. This is the breaking point. Eventually, your rice dropping will burn out your people. They will then shut down like that high cost machine. But unlike a machine, people can't just be "fixed". They become damaged and need significant emotional and mental help. I urge you to stop killing your Golden Goose and give your people proper maintenance. I love what my friend Kelly Jones of The Cleaning Girl (Wilmington, DE) does! You'll hear this in a future podcast interview. Kelly is a mom and knows the pressures, stresses, and responsibilities of being a mom. She has designed her employment to hire moms just like her. She knows her moms need money and lots of flexibility with their kid's school schedules and sicknesses. She only takes on clients that fit into her puzzle of what her moms can do. It's a beautiful thing and Kelly is taking care of her people. This is one reason why she has super low turnover and a great reputation in her state.
• How well are you taking care of yourself? The final question is in regards to YOU! You are the Golden Goose that provides a lifestyle to your family. How are you treating your machine? Are you eating well, sleeping well, taking time for "me-time". enjoying nature, playing with your kids, reading & growing, and spending valuable time with those that you love? This is why you build your business, right? Well the truth is that most of us are burning the candle at both ends. We are adding rice to our own scale of life at a fast pace and one day, we will crash and burn. This fall will harm a lot of people because it's not just you. It's your spouse, your kids, your employees, your clients, and the people in your community you were helping.