Where I live, the California Cheese people have an advertising campaign (I assume in competition with Wisconsin) that show miserable cows in the midst of blizzards followed by “happy” cows basking in the sun, almost frolicking in the California sunshine. The theory I suppose is that happy cows will produce better milk and therefore better cheese.
Let’s analyze this one layer deeper with cows from Japan. Most of us have now heard of kobe beef. After all, I’ve heard that Kobe Bryant was named after this stuff. Kobe beef is now available in the U.S., but it’s just not the same as the stuff you can get over in Japan. After all, it’s not just the meat that’s great, it’s how the cows are ranched. The theory here is that in order to get the best product, you want your cows to be in the ideal condition, with the proper environment and inputs to make them “successful.” Here’s the deal. To make sure that the beef is the most tender, these cows are subjected to piped in music to help them relax. Even better than that, they undergo a relaxation and seasoning routine for their entire lives that involves the consumption of large quantities of beer. Think about this, you may already cook your meet with beer, but what if the meat was pre-infused with the stuff. Not only that, but this helps guarantee that the meat is tender as the cows are too “buzzed” their entire lives to really toughen up the meat. Lastly, and oddest of all, these cows get daily massages. Let’s take relaxation to the extreme why don’t we. Have you ever heard of massaging a cow? Pretty odd stuff.
The point being that you control the environment, culture and to some degree the flow of resources to your workforce. This environment can be Wisconsin-like (sorry guys in Wisconsin), California sunshine, or heck, you can go to extremes and go for kobe beef quality. (definitely no commentary on Wisconsin cheese here BTW. I’m not cheese connoisseur.). I’m reminded by places during the internet boom when people were excited about the work they were doing, willing to spend all day and night working on projects with their peers. Many of these companies provided on-site bowling alleys, fooz ball machines and such. I’m not saying this was the right model, but it sure did seem to stimulate the right type of environment to encourage the workforce to keep things moving forward. I also know of many organizations that certainly do provide on-site massages on a weekly basis (sign-ups of course) and even beer socials occasionally after work. The massages provide some relief for employees who are hunched over a computer desk all day, and the beer socials can provide a way to network and see peers face to face in an ever increasingly e-mail/IM/VM world. You get to decide what’s effective for your organization, but know that those perqs do make a difference if they are targeted strategically.
One response to “Happy Cows Come From California”
I do like your analogy. I often feel like a cow (or bull!).
The main thing to keep in mind that engagement does not equal happiness. Sure, unhappy people are unlikely to give you sustained performance, but engagement is about people really committing themselves to the goals of the organisation. It’s about them feeling a sense of achievement from contributing to its success, excitement about their work…. and so on (there’s 8 distinct ways to be ‘engaged’ according to the motivational framework we use).