After erecting a chicken coop we inherited from a professional structural engineer, I was so excited. This coop is built so well and is perfect for three hens who have the opportunity to free range. But as you know, free ranging is not a viable option when you also have two well-trained hunting dogs. So I stared at this beautiful coop and thought, what are we going to do with it?

And then I had this moment of clarity. We could add siding to the coop, turning the entire structure into the coop, and then build onto it with a fence that allowed the chickens to roam around outside. I hurried back to the house to share my moment of brilliance with my husband. Who, as I found out, was way ahead of me on that thought.

Perfect: we were aligned on the vision. Now we could get to work. I started looking for siding and getting ready to make this vision a reality. Of course, as often happens, he wasn’t too keen on this idea…yet.

The fact is, the end of the summer is not the right time to start raising fryers. This is typically done in the spring. And turkeys take 14 to 25 weeks to mature, so, working backwards from Thanksgiving, we’d want to start turkeys sometime in June. We were late to the fryer and turkey party.

But not all was lost. We just needed to make a plan to get us ready for spring chicks. So we started to develop our one-year plan. This included modifying the coop, adding fencing around the coop so the birds could roam, researching the type of chickens and turkeys we wanted, and learning methods for processing the birds.

In other words, there’s plenty to do in this upcoming year. We just needed to get clarity around what to work on when and who was going to do the work.

I will say that we enjoyed the process as we talked through ideas, debated some approaches and set a budget for all the work. In the end, we were both really pumped about what this next year could bring us.

Planning for raising chickens is similar to setting a one-year plan for a business. As a leadership team, my clients work together discussing and debating the most important things they need to accomplish in the upcoming year. Some of them, not unlike me, want to jump in and get started right away. And some of the ideas can be started immediately. However, there are some things that require planning before getting started.

As I watched a leadership team set their one-year plan a few weeks ago, I noticed they kept circling around their ideas until slowly they narrowed down a few goals. And then they debated, quite passionately at times, what they could realistically accomplish in the upcoming year. They whittled down their list to a set of five goals that everyone was excited about. This was their third annual plan, and the visionary said it was the best one-year plan they had ever set. The goals were concise, achievable and, in his mind, the most important things the organization needed to address.

Do you have a one-year plan that your leadership is working toward? Is your leadership team united around this plan? Did they participate in setting it, or did you develop it in a vacuum? Allowing the team to participate in setting a one-year plan means they are much more likely to be willing to do the hard work to achieve it. As we move into the last quarter of the year, if you need help setting an exciting and compelling one-year plan, I’m just an email away.

Have you ever heard the phrase “One bad apple spoils the bunch”?  Have you ever thought about why that is?  I mean, if all the other apples are fine, why does one ruin it?  Is this some extension of entropy, where the tendency of the universe moves toward disorder? I think about entropy a lot, especially when looking at my desk or my closet, and sadly I would say that both of those “systems” are constantly moving toward disorder.  But I digress.

So, if one bad apple can spoil a bunch, could one good apple improve a spoiled bunch?  Or put another way, could one human-friendly chicken improve a flock of human-scared chickens?

Yep, I just used entropy to talk about chickens.  Didn’t think I could do that, did you?  Anyway, here’s what is happening.  As I’ve mentioned, I recently inherited three very sweet, human-raised chickens.  Whenever I come up to the coop, they come running up to me.  They get so close to me that I have almost stepped on them multiple times.

As you may recall, that is not the case with the chickens I raised myself.  I walk into the coop and they scatter, some of them squawking bloody murder.  I look at them and under my breath whisper, “Drama Queen Chickens.”

But since I have brought those three friendly chickens into the flock, my hens come running up to greet me alongside the three I inherited.  It almost seems like their fear of me is starting to subside.  I keep wondering if these three sweet hens are having a positive impact on my flock.

And then I started to think about my clients.  Could one good hire transform a group of under-performing employees? How many Right People (people who fit the culture and consistently demonstrate the company’s core values) does it take to truly create a great culture?  What is the tipping point where this change happens, if you don’t have it now?  I think it depends on the organization, but the ultimate goal is to get to the point where 100% of your people are Right People in the Right Seat.

I don’t have a single client who doesn’t have a Wrong Person somewhere in the organization. When these people issues come up, I will ask the leadership team three questions: Do you want to Coach Them Up? Coach Them Out? Or Live With It?

It really is that simple.  But if you choose to live with it, you could lose some of the Right People you already have, those who want to work for a company that sticks by its core values.

Recently, I had a client who filled a vacant leadership position with someone with a strong background in her field.  Previously, the leadership team depended on the president to make most of the decisions, and while their performance was adequate (or marginal) it was not sustainable for growth.  This new person came into the leadership team with a sense of ownership, focus and energy.  She challenged everyone with her questions, owned her mistakes when she was wrong and put an incredible amount of energy into her department.  Once the team got over the initial shock of working with someone with so much energy, they started to see what ownership looked like in action. In six short months, other members of the leadership team realized the importance of accountability and began to own their own seats.  Finally, the few that resisted realized they had to decide: own their seat or leave.  One year after the new hire came onto the leadership team, the entire team dynamics had changed.  Collectively, the focus became performance, improvement and productivity, and the president began supporting his team members rather than directing them.

If you aren’t happy with the performance of your leadership team, or your organization, I’d encourage you to look at introducing some good apples into your bushel.  You may be surprised at what an impact they can have on your entire organization.  Need help taking that step? Send me an email! I’ll walk you through the process.

If you have spent much time with me, you will know that I love to create things, but I’m not too artistic.  I have this mental picture of what I want to draw, but when it comes to creating that picture with a brush, pen, or Apple Pencil, what actually is formed is very different from what I see in my mind.

When I started thinking about getting chickens, I knew I needed a chicken coop. I was advised not to purchase a coop as they tend not to hold up.  So, during the pandemic shutdown, I realized it was time to build my coop.  The rest of the details that would take us from building a coop to actually getting farm-fresh eggs were a bit fuzzy to me (my husband would probably say they were very fuzzy).  But I didn’t care, I was ready to start that journey.

The reality is that it took me a lot longer than I expected to reach a point where I had the whole Chicken Mama thing figured out.  It seemed like a constant learning process, starting with the fact that chickens can fly (hence the phrase “the chickens flew the coop”).  For the first year or so, I never knew what to expect when I went to the coop, but I knew it wasn’t going to be predictable.

Over time, my husband and I began to come to agreement on what we were trying to achieve.  Yes, the initial goal was to have farm-fresh eggs, but, ultimately, we realized we had a real opportunity to use our property for more than an egg-making adventure.  We agreed to stick to animals that can fly, including fryers (chickens you can eat) and turkeys. And just recently he added the idea of ducks?!?

So we know where we are going long-term, but we need a pathway to get there.  And that is where drawing comes in.  What should Marlee Acres look like three years from now on our way to achieving our 10-year target? We need additional coops for the different chickens and turkeys, we need the skills to kill and prep our birds, we need the time to focus on all these birds and, ideally, we will have dogs that won’t chase and kill our chickens.  In other words, my picture needs to be a bit less fuzzy and much more crystal clear.

This is the same process I take my clients through as we develop their three-year picture.  I like to ask them, Are you ready to start drawing? Then we go to work creating a picture of what their organization will look like on the way to achieving their 10-year target.  This is where we get specific about what they will achieve in the next three years.

Drawing this picture is beneficial because if everyone on the leadership team can see the same thing, the chances of achieving it are so much greater.

During this exercise, I encourage the team to consider all aspects of the business, including their role, the size of the organization, the work being done, the locations and their reputation in the marketplace.

With one of my clients, after we drew the picture, I asked if everyone could see it, and someone said, “No, some parts are still fuzzy.”  The leadership team kept working on their drawing until they could all see it and were excited to be a part of it.

This isn’t an exercise in which you want to just go along to get along with everyone on the leadership team.  If everyone on your team can’t answer “Heck Yes” to the question “Can you see it?” we haven’t done our best work.

When you nail it, the excitement in the room is amazing! And people are excited to get to work achieving the picture you’ve drawn.

If you look at your three-year picture and can’t say “Heck Yes” – email me.  I might not be much of an artist, but I can help you and your leadership team draw an exciting, compelling picture of the future of your company.

Where will we be 10 years from now?, I asked my husband.  It’s a question we discuss frequently.  We are no longer spring chickens (well, I still think I am), and defining what is important in life seems to be a consistent theme in our discussions of the future.

But I also know myself, and the status quo is not something I feel compelled to accept.  So the question I keep asking is, “What’s next?”  Now that we are clear on our core focus – sticking to animals that fly – it is time to focus on where we are going long-term.

We recently inherited three new chickens and a totally awesome coop built by a professional structural engineer.  Those chickens are so sweet – they were clearly raised by a devoted chicken mama and are comfortable around humans and dogs.  Last week, one of them actually took some food right out of my hand – something my chickens would never do.  And the little sounds they make when I walk up to them are absolutely adorable.

The acquisition of the new coop has allowed us to move the timeline for fryers and turkeys forward, but that still doesn’t answer the question of where we are going long-term.

As we talk through this, we get excited about what the possibilities could be for our property.  Fresh eggs, homegrown chickens in the freezer, serving farm-raised turkey at Thanksgiving.  And that’s how we arrived at our 10-year target: “The Best Place for Chickens to Flock West of the Mississippi.”  Oh, man, I can’t wait to have T-shirts made up.

The 10-year target (a key component of the vision of your organization) is the one, long-range, overarching, energizing goal that everyone in your company is working toward.  It doesn’t have to be 10 years – it could be 5 or 30 years, but regardless of timeframe, it’s critical that this target involves everyone and is energizing.

In Ben Hardy’s most recent book, “10x Is Easier than 2x,” he writes that when you expand your mind to encompass what you could actually achieve if you dream big, you can’t then shrink the mind back down to its original state.  He argues that shifting your mindset to make the biggest imaginable changes is easier than making incremental improvements to achieve 2x results.  And this mindset shift allows you (or your team) to reach beyond what is currently in front of you.

In a recent EOS session with a new client, we started to talk through the 10-year target.  I shared some examples from other EOS clients, including some inspiring targets from my own clients. The response from my new client was, “Wow, I need to think bigger and beyond myself. My goal for this business isn’t nearly large enough.”

In talking about the 10-year target with another client, the owner said, “I want to be a $1 billion company!”  And the CFO asked, “Why? You don’t even care about money.”  The owner’s response was that he wanted “unlimited resources to build cool s**t.”  The team loved that idea, and so does the rest of the company.

So, when you think about where you want your business to be 10 years from now, what comes to mind?  Are you thinking beyond making money? Are you focusing on the impact your business could have in your industry?  In your community?  On your employees and their families?

I want to encourage you to dream big!  Even if you fall a little short of your 10-year target, you will be so much closer to what you really want than you would if you just focused on incremental improvement.  Need help clarifying your long-term target? Send me an email – I can help you achieve what you really want from your business.

Almost every day when I drive down my driveway past the neighbor’s pasture, I see their goat with the floppy ears hanging out with the horses. Sometimes he is perched on top of the wood stand, and sometimes he is lying on top of the horse, his legs dangling down on each side. It absolutely cracks me up every time I see it. I hear goats are pretty easy to take care of, so why not get one? I mean, they eat blackberry bushes, and we have plenty of those. And now that we can manage our chickens, why not try out some other farm animals?

My husband has also decided we should raise a lamb. (I just found out a lamb is a baby sheep. I know, I know, I didn’t learn my farm animals when I was younger.) But then, why stop at a lamb? Maybe we should get a cow? I mean, if we are going to go in, let’s go all in.

At some point along this line of thought, a voice of reasons calls out, “What are you thinking?” Chickens are relatively easy to care for, and it took me nearly 3 years to figure it out. And do we really want to spend all our time caring for animals that, in the end, we will probably eat? Well, except for the goat with the floppy ears. I could never eat him, he is too cute.

The fact is, for a while there, my husband and I were chasing shiny edible objects. Until I realized what we were doing. Learning how to raise chickens for eggs does not translate to raising larger animals for food.

That’s when we had to come to an agreement regarding what we wanted to focus our attention on. And I’ll be honest, it was hard for us to agree. Mike, a Midwesterner who grew up on meat and potatoes, thinks we should use our property to raise animals to eat. Julie, a city girl who just recently started living in the country, is very proud of her ability to pick up a chicken with her bare hands.

For now, we have agreed to stick with animals that fly. We currently have lay hens, and in the future we will likely get fryers and turkeys. It is something that we both agree we can focus on and succeed at in the short-term while leaving time for our other interests, including hiking and traveling.

I often see this type of struggle from my clients. They lack clarity around what the true focus of the business should be. It’s easy to want to do too many things at once. When my clients start building their vision, I tell them that nailing the core focus will take somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 years. If the team can’t agree on the core focus of the business, they will start (or continue) chasing shiny objects, possibly even cute goats with floppy ears.

An organization’s core focus is its sweet spot. It is where the purpose meets the niche. Or where the “why” intersects the “what.”

If you take a step back and look at your business, have you ever wondered why some of the work you do is so easy and some of it is so hard? When you are operating in your sweet spot, everything just seems to flow. The hard work doesn’t seem as hard, and the output is top-notch.

One of my clients went through a tremendous growth spurt, and business was great – until it wasn’t. All of a sudden, projects weren’t finishing profitably, customers were unhappy, and it seemed just so hard. When the team finally took the time to slow down and think about why some projects were going great, and others were not, they realized the easier work was right in their wheelhouse. They realized they had a choice to make: continue to grow, knowing that some of their projects would be outside their sweet spot and therefore harder and less profitable, or start turning down that kind of work and focusing on what they truly enjoyed and were really good at.

Nearly every one of my clients has had to decide if they want growth for the sake of growth. Not everyone realizes it’s a lot harder to run a $40 million company with 10% profits than a $20 million dollar company with 20% profits. So, what kind of company do you want? Will the leadership team say no to accepting work that falls outside their sweet spot? Doing this requires an abundance mindset, as well as trust that if you do great work, more will follow.

As you look at your company, what do you see? Are you crystal clear on your sweet spot? Or are you chasing shiny objects because you can’t say no and you think you need the revenue? Answer that question honestly, and if you don’t like the answer, email me. I can help you and your team gain clarity around your core focus.