Raising 3-legged Chickens? Or Eating Them?
Without clearly describing and identifying what you are aiming for in a process or project, you will not know how to appropriately measure the outcome, but more importantly you will also miss out on knowing if you have achieved success. I was recently reminded of a story that emphasizes the importance of knowing and defining your end-goals and planning how to measure success. (Apologies to my vegan friends!)
A man was driving down the road, going about 40mph. He looked to his left and saw a chicken running next to him. He sped up to 50mph, and the chicken kept pace. It was then that the man then noticed the chicken was propelled by three legs. Curious, the man sped up to 60mph – and so did the chicken. Suddenly, the chicken mustered a burst of speed, cut in front of the car, and darted down a country lane. The man couldn’t help himself! He slammed on the brakes and turned down the lane to follow the chicken. In a bit, he came to a farm and saw a farmer.
The farmer asked, “Can I help you?”
“I saw a 3-legged chicken come down this way,” the man replied, still a bit dumbfounded,
“Yup, we raise 3-legged chickens on this farm,” the farmer said, matter-of-factly.
“How intriguing,” said the man, regaining his senses. “May I ask why?”
“Well,” the farmer started, “I like a drumstick, and my wife likes a drumstick. We seemed to always butt up against the dilemma of having company over who also wanted a drumstick. So, we started raising 3-legged chickens.”
“That’s remarkable!” exclaimed the man. “How do they taste?”
“We don’t know,” answered the farmer, looking down at the ground. “We’ve never caught one.”
MORAL OF THE STORY: Know what your end-goal is and how you’re going to measure success.
Raising 3-legged chickens wasn’t the farmer’s goal; eating them was. Figuring out how to catch a 3-legged chicken cooking it and eating it (thus, measuring success), was just as important to the farmer’s project as learning how to grow that extra drumstick. Meanwhile, as it stood, he continued to have a growing number of 3-legged chickens insisting on being fed, none of which was really bringing any tangible benefit to the farm.
Don’t let your next project or initiative become a 3-legged chicken you never catch. It may be cool to make it happen, but is it really satisfying the reason it was created?
