Tag: Marketing Professional Warje

Business EQ Tips from Chickens: Final Installment

 
Last week we covered six lessons about Business EQ that you can learn from, yes, chickens. In Part I we discussed Thinking Outside the Coop, Some People Never Change, and Generally Speaking, the Sky Does Not Fall In; in Part II, we bravely considered the EQ lessons of Don’t Muddy Your Own Water, Be Adaptable, and Mind the Pecking Order.

For today’s blog, we finish up our top 10 list with ….

7) It’s good to tuck under someone’s wing

Chicken behavior: Baby chicks like to sleep under their mothers. But if you buy the chickens as chicks, they have no big fat mama with whom to cuddle. Instead they fall asleep in a heap on the floor of their box, little heads tucked under each others’ bodies, legs and wings akimbo. As adults, chicks who are raised together exhibit the same behavior—snoozing together in a heap in the sun, or trying so hard to tuck under another hen’s body they knock her over.

Human lesson: Periodically during your career, it’s good to tuck under the wing of a mentor. Maybe it’s someone who has something to teach you about leadership, team building, or community relations. Or maybe it’s someone who you realize can help you polish your professional presence or bump up your technical skills. Whatever it is, knowing what you need to work on – and being able to identify who can teach you new skills – is a key part of Business EQ.

8) Hatch your eggs, don’t smash them.

Chicken Behavior: On occasion, it’s true, a hen will peck her own eggs (and then all the other hens will come over to clean up the mess, which can result in a syndrome known as, “Where the heck are the eggs going?”). But generally hens either lay their eggs and forget about them, or they sit on the eggs, waiting for them to hatch.

Human Lesson: Running a business, dealing with clients, leading teams, developing employees – it all depends on your ability to nurture ideas and people. Sure, being brave and aggressive count in a lot of ways, but if you’re abrasive, dismissive, or downright scary, you’ll end up doing more harm than good.

9) Scratching is important.

Chicken behavior: Chickens spend a lot of time scratching the ground, looking for bugs, little rocks, bits of ground-up corn — and, at our house, crumbs the kids leave in the grass. This is what chickens do for fun and it’s very, very productive. (Hens in factory farms, by the way, don’t get to do this…but don’t get me started on that topic.)

Human Lesson: As dear old Henry Ford once said, “Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets.” Or as Thomas Edison said, genius is one part inspiration, 99 parts perspiration. Keep digging for new contacts, new products, new trends, new ideas — that’s what truly helps you grow your business.

10) Steady production counts

Chicken behavior: Hens lay eggs just about every 28 hours. It’s a steadiness of performance that’s quite inspiring .

Human lesson: Did you ever know someone who seemed to have a skyrocketing career in their 20s and 30s and then just sort of…burned out?  Stopped performing? Disappeared even? Or someone who maybe does great work sometimes but not-so-great work other times? Pacing is important. Take good enough care of yourself that you can perform consistently at high levels. That’s what reputations are made of.

Sad Implications of the China Indictments

 
The indictment of two Chinese companies for allegedly selling tainted wheat gluten and mislabeling the product to avoid Chinese inspections has sad implications for American manufacturers – sad because it will give American products a boost at the cost of thousands of pets’ lives. The gluten ended up in more than 60 million cans of pet food according to USA Today, with more than 150 brands involved.

The news of the indictments will have a huge ripple effect. It will, for example, serve as reminder of the recent tainted toy scandal involving lead-based paint, which resulted in 10.5 million toys being taken off the shelves of retailers just prior to Christmas.

Fair-minded, rational people know that most Chinese companies that sell products or components into the U.S. market aren’t guilty of any crimes, and provide parts, chemicals or finished goods that meet the relevant specifications for quality and safety.

But, as Machiavelli has taught us, many people are neither fair minded nor rational. And as a result, this news presents both opportunities and threats.

The opportunity is for companies that manufacture exclusively in the U.S. It lies in the fact that “Made in U.S.A” means a lot more than it did six months ago. In a number of categories – plastic baby bottles, pacifiers, vinyl lunch boxes, toothpaste, lipstick, diapers and tires, to name a few – “Made in U.S.A.” stands for safety, while “Made in China” stands for danger. (These categories associated with “Chinese risk”  were provided by workday Minnesota. a labor advocacy organization.) With consumers already nervous about Chinese products, American manufacturers have a chance to gain market share if they play the “Made in U.S.A.” card.

The threat is for companies where Chinese components are part of their supply chain. It’s not fair, but no matter how many inspection steps they have in place, some people will look at their product with suspicion just because of its Chinese content.
In taking these realities into account, there’s a moral dilemma: Is it fair to exploit peoples’ fears to sell more product? I’ll take a stand. Proudly touting the “Made in U.S.A” label is okay. Negative China bashing steps crosses the line. What do you think?