1. Failure is not an option: It doesn’t matter how cold it is or whether you’re sick. If you don’t feed the cows, they die.
2. Treat other people well: When you run into trouble on a ranch, the only people who can help are your neighbors, so you’d better treat them fairly. Same thing goes for work. You never know who your next business partner will be.
3. Always have a backup plan: If you plant wheat, and a drought wipes out your crop, you’ll be okay if you have a backup plan, like cattle. You can stay alive for another year until you can grow your wheat. Business is no different. No matter how good your ideas, something can go wrong. So always make a contingency plan.
4. Listen to people around you: On a ranch, you always have to adapt to change. Maybe someone shows you a better way to harvest your fields. People invent new things all the time. As a CEO, I reserve the right to make a decision, but I highly encourage input. I’ve been known to switch sides in ten minutes if I hear an excellent argument.
5. Keep it simple: If you’re talking circles around someone, chances are you’re hiding your own ignorance. If you know your subject, you should be able to simplify it so even an eighth-grader can understand it.
6. You don’t always have to be the best: You just have to be perfect (sometimes). When I was in my early 20s, I was regularly competing in rope matches at rodeos, and I told my friend that I was going to beat the best roper in the world, Roy Cooper, within a year. Let me just say that Roy Cooper was and is the god of calf roping.
It was a pretty lofty goal, so the next week, I started roping anyone, anytime, anywhere. Finally, I got the chance to take on Roy. I can’t say that I was a better roper than Roy. But I knew I had to rope as well as I humanly could. And I did. I made no mistakes. I was perfect.
7. Do the hard thing: No one would have given me a chance in hell of beating Roy Cooper. If I didn’t challenge myself, I wouldn’t have ever tried. If I didn’t challenge myself, I never would have taken on artificial intelligence. But I like doing the hard thing.
8. You’re only as good as your word: Have integrity, even if others around you don’t. On a ranch, you have to trust people. And they have to trust you. That’s how it was and still is. I believe that business is the same. To this day I do multi-million dollar deals on a handshake.
The post The Cowboy CEO’s 8 Business Rules Learned Roping Cattle appeared first on LCwire.com I News for leaders who serve as stewards in critical decision-making roles.