One Amazing Management Lesson I Learned from My Chuckling Goats

by Shann Nix Jones, author of Secrets From Chuckling Goat: How A Herd of Goats Saved My Family and Started A Business that Became A Natural Health Phenomenon.

This is a picture of two of my favourite Chuckling Goats, Marmite, and her daughter Valentine. These ladies are Toggenburg goats. And for a goat farmer, Toggenburgs - well, let's just say they're SPECIAL. They're goats with attitude.

Marmite was one of the first of our Chuckling Goats. She had little teeny teats - absolute hell to learn to milk! I remember I used to cry every night from sheer frustration, trying to get the milk into the bucket before she kicked it over.

Marmite was bossy, stroppy and aggressive. She had a terrible sweet tooth, and would knock you over, trying to get to the sugar beet shreds. And once her daughter Valentine was born, it was even worse! Together the two of them became the Toggie Mafia - bossing around the other, more mild-mannered white Saanen goats, and keeping them away from the hay.

I finally got fed up. "Rich," I said to my husband, "We're going to have to get rid of these Toggies. They're driving me nuts! And they're bullying the other goats."

But Rich always had a sneaking fondness for Marmite - and he didn't want to get rid of her.

I've learned over time that Rich - annoyingly - is nearly always right. It's a "Welsh farm magic" thing - he just knows these things, from deep in his Welsh traditions. So for his sake, I looked a little closer.

Like the white Saanen goats we keep, Toggenburgs hail from Switzerland. But the Saanens are camouflaged for the valleys full of snow - they're pure white. Saanens are known for being placid, and they're lazy - they'd be happy to just stay in the valley all day, eating the grass.

But here's the thing about goats - they're not grass grazers by nature. They're browsers. For full health, they need to ramble the hillsides, and nibble herbs and bushes. Grass alone is not enough for them.

When I thought harder, I realized that Toggenburgs are camouflaged for the higher Alps - the places where traces of snow drift over grey rocks. See their markings? Imagine them up in the high Alps?

Then I realized - the famous sweet tooth of Toggenburgs has a function, far beyond just making them greedy for sugar beet - it enables them to search out the sweetest herbs, that grow in the highest reaches.

And Toggenburgs are bossy and stroppy because that quality enables them to drive the entire herd up the mountain, to the best grazing.

Without the Toggies, the whole herd would just stay in the valley - and the milk would suffer.

Sure, they're aggressive and bossy. But they drive the herd to better grazing.

The presence of Toggies in my herd, improved the wellbeing of the entire herd.

Once I could see how their attributes benefitted the group - I understood how they functioned as a part of the whole. It was easier for me to tolerate the behavior that I had been rejecting before.

Now when I look at my human team of workers at Chuckling Goat now, I look at them differently - with the addition of this piece of information that I learned from the goats.

If someone is drawing your attention - what attributes are asking to be noticed, and suited to a purpose?

And could their presence be for a purpose- to drive the whole herd to better grazing?

Who are the Toggies in your life, or your organization?