Cow Sense

Michael and his lovely girlfriend Angela came to visit this past week. They were here only a short time before I was reminded of 7 year old Michael when he declared “Cow bones are my life.” I struggled with this for some time, trying to find the deep wisdom. I owned cows at the time and was not impressed. They were nowhere near as smart as any dog, cat or horse I had gotten to know. In fact, they crap in their food. That which doesn’t land in their food they tend to wear around as some form of fashion statement, one that I hope never catches on. What could cows be telling Michael?

Then one day I realized the cows had taught me something profound. Occasionally, you need to move cows to another pasture, to the barn or off your neighbor’s property. Modern day urban cowboys like me use 4-wheelers instead of a horse (horses don’t listen to me either). Ever try to herd a cow. It does not work with today’s cows … and you only irritate them. What does work is a bag of food on the back of the 4-wheeler. Communicate what you have to offer the cow and she will follow you anywhere.

This is not unlike management today. The day of command and control Marine style is dying. Today, we need to communicate with the group and they need to want to follow you. I have found women are better at this style of management than men. Besides having caught up with men in math and science and having most of the university degrees by a growing margin; they have the right temperament and will be the future leaders. They have moved beyond being just teachers and nurses as was the case when I was a 7 year old. You know how you hear people say today that fifty is the new forty (sixty is the new forty in my case). Let me be the first to tell you, women are the new men. A profound thought taught by cows. Hopefully we won’t start learning from ants where the females keep only a very few males. “Male ants, which come from unfertilized eggs, typically serve one purpose: to mate with a queen. Males are usually in short supply, and a queen produces male eggs only when it's time to make more colonies. Males, which have short life spans, die shortly after mating.”