I grew up on a farm. We raised a variety of crops, had a fertilizer and seed business, and we raised hogs. For most of my growing up, our hog operation was pretty small, and feeding was done somewhat automatically. Feed was prepared every few days, and loaded into feeders which was gravity fed to the animals as they ate. While you didn’t want them to run out of food (we were trying to help them grow as fast as possible after all), it wasn’t an everyday task.

That changed in December of my senior year of high school when we put the first pigs into our new finishing barn. Soon, this barn continually housed 450 hogs, at various stages of growth. For a variety of reasons, there were no automatic feeders – which meant the hogs had to be fed twice a day, at about the same times, each day.

In winter, when there was less to do, this wasn’t too big of a deal – you had to get out of the warm house, make it through the snow, and feed, but there were not too many competing tasks. But during the busy seasons on a farm, it didn’t matter how busy you were, how far behind you were, or what other pressing on or off farm activities you faced.

You had to feed the hogs.

Twice a day, every day.

I’ve tried hard to never lose sight of this lesson, because it is critically important to all of us as leaders. We must be completely clear on the tasks that must be done, regardless of anything else. During some points of the year we had more urgent tasks; and you have urgent tasks too – fires to put out, Customers to respond to, and more. While there will always be the more urgent tasks, and perhaps more interesting and exciting tasks, as leaders, we must always remember those most important tasks – those critical to our overall success.

You’ve got to feed the hogs.

You likely don’t have hogs to feed, but you do have your equivalent – the tasks that maintain and grow your business, that support your team’s core mission, that, left to neglect, will have a serious detrimental effect on your results.

As a leader, you must know what your “hog feeding” tasks are, and you must help your team know where theirs are, too.

And then you must always do them.

On the farm, the hogs would get louder when hungry. It became hard to ignore. Unfortunately, we might not get these reminders.  As the leader, that is your job – to remind, to lead by example, and, at all cost, make sure you are feeding your hogs.

Here are some questions to consider, based on this simple example

What are your business equivalents of “feeding the hogs?”

Are you and everyone on your team crystal clear on what these are?

How are you making sure that these most important things are done consistently, intentionally, and effectively?

photo credit: cloud_nine via photopin cc

There are just three more days in the 12 (Leadership) Days of Christmas.  If you have been following along, don’t stop now!  And if you have just found this thread of tasks/gifts, you can get the background, purpose and full recap here.

I grew up on a farm, and while we rarely had chickens (or 3 french hens) I certainly learned about accountability through animals.  No excuses, no obstacle too large, the hogs had to be fed.  It is a lesson hard to replicate with a pet.  One of the gifts I was given as a young person was the gift of understanding and having accountability.

With that in mind, here is today’s gift – the gift of accountability.

 – Am I taking full accountability for my role and influence in the organization?

– Do I offer others accountability without malice or baggage?

 – If I want greater accountability on my team/in my organization what can I do?

You might be thinking that not everyone will think that being held accountable will feel like a gift.  After all, visions of CNN interviews with law enforcement or politicians after a tragedy saying “Someone must be accountable” may be in your head.  Or the seldom-stated-for positive-reasons comment from a CEO or other leader saying “We need more accountability in this organization”.

Accountability has gotten a bad name.

Yet deep down, most of us, most of the time, want to have something we are needed for.  Our work is most purposeful when we know that something belongs to us and that is it our responsibility to “get ‘er done.”

In my experience most of those leaders who say “we need more accountability” should start by looking in the mirror, and be more accountable themselves.

The gift of accountability, when accepted, creates a more positive, purposeful and productive workplace.  And it starts with you.

Give this gift today.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . .

Four calling birds?

I don’t want to give or receive any birds, but the gift I’m writing about today?

That’s definitely a gift worth giving.

If you don’t know how a Twelve Days of Christmas reference makes it onto a blog about leadership – it is a part of my 12 (Leadership) Days of Christmas,you can learn all about it and get caught up to speed here.

Here is today’s task/gift.  Ask yourself . . .

 – What is my ratio of statements to questions with my team?

 – How often do I ask first?

  – How can I build the habit of asking more and better questions?

The best leaders ask (lots of) questions. It is almost a self-evident point, because questions help us in so many ways.  They help us communicate, solve problems, make decisions, coach others, and far more.

When we ask questions and listen to the answers, we are showing respect and valuing the other person, as well as their opinion.

Without questions, one of the best gifts you can give your team is the gift of open, honest, curious questions. Think in terms of questions and ask more of them – that’s today’s gift.

This week, the world lost a legend; a one-of-a-kind salesman, author and speaker died.  Zig Ziglar was all of these things and he was also one of my mentors and heroes.  I read his books, listened to his speeches over and over, and attended his week-end workshop with my wife.  Zig is one of the reasons I do what I do today.

So today’s quotation, is one of his best and, arguably, his most famous.

“You can get anything in life that you want if you help enough other people get what they want.”

– Zig Ziglar, speaker, author and salesman

Questions to Ponder

Do you know what those around you want in and from life?

If not, why not?

What can you do to help them get what they want?

Action Steps

1.  Focus on others and their wants and needs.

2.  Truly understand those needs and work to help them be met.

3.  Then do it some more.

My Thoughts

This idea of reciprocation is one of the most wonderful things about the way life on Earth works.  Zig’s quotation starts about being about us (what we want), but it only works when we make our efforts truly about others.  How do we know what they want, how do we serve them, support them, and help them?  Those questions are the starting point of greater life success and satisfaction.

A cynic would say this is self serving – I’m only scratching your back so you will scratch mine.  But this isn’t the message of this idea, and won’t even work in the long term. The real point is a paradox. We do things to help from a place of genuine care and hope, and we do it knowing good things can come to us, but only as an outcome, not as the point of the effort in the first place.

If you want to read a further tribute I wrote to Zig on the publishing of his final book a few months ago, you can find it here.