Good Stockmanship = Good Business

Last weekend, I attended a lecture at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA. The guest lecturer was Temple Grandin from the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University. Her topic was "Understanding Animal Behavior". For those not familiar with Temple Grandin, she is a prominent and widely cited proponent of the rights of people with autism and of animal welfare. To put it simply, I was not expecting to learn anything about running a business.  And then she started talking.

She began by explaining how she sees the world in pictures and images - very visually based. And animals also have a sensory-based experience with the world. They use their sight, sound, smell, taste and touch to experience the world. With the understanding of how animals "see" the world, she tied it to good stockmanship using some of the examples where she has improved humane livestock handling processes. She has designed systems intended to reduce stress, panic and injury in animals being led to slaughter. It turns out; reducing stress, panic and injury also provides a better quality of meat in the final product which ultimately you can sell at a better price (which is good for business).

Good stockmanship is really about managing what you measure. If it's important, it gets measured and maintaining a high standard means continuous measurement. Which is what many companies work on -- what gets measured gets done! Granin expounded on the importance of managing quality product by maintaining regular audits and implementing an objective numerical scoring system. While she referred to them as critical control points (CCP), they are no different from key performance indicators (KPI) used in many other businesses. And like any key performance indicator (KPI) the words "properly," "adequately," and "sufficient" are not quantifiable. But tracking the number of cows that balk at each point in the process, or that bellow, or the number of times an electric prod is required to be used and then working to find solutions to decrease the number is really just good business. Sometimes those solutions were as simple as adding light so the animals can see where they are going instead of forcing them down a dark alley way. Or providing non-skid surfaces where the animals walk so they don't have a fear of falling.

Any number of studies has shown that low-stress livestock management provides the advantage of increasing productivity and maintaining meat quality. Cattle that have become agitated and excited in the squeeze chute have significantly lower weight gains and tougher meat. For any product, you should always be looking at ways to increase productivity and quality. And the data shows good stockmanship provides that.

About Karol

Karol Dixon de la O works with serious business professionals to find the next level of achievement in their business. Business owners and entrepreneurs who struggle with time and priority management, sales, marketing, delegation, strategic thinking, relationship building or leadership effectiveness can elevate their game with business coach Karol Dixon de la O.

Karol has over 20 years of experience analyzing challenges and opportunities within organizations. Using powerful business concepts and strategies to impact your business, she works with clients one-on-one to discover the best path forward and how to leverage strengths to reach the next level of success.