A loving relationship?

Namibia, in southern Africa, has about half of the world's cheetah population. Until the 1990's this had been falling fast because farmers shot them to protect their livestock.

1990 witnessed in Namibia the arrival of Laurie Marker, a U.S. biologist, who was appalled at the rate cheetah numbers were declining.

Since 1994 the Livestock Guarding Dog Program, initiated by Laurie, has trained more than 200 Anatolian shepherd dogs to protect sheep and goats. The dogs weigh up to 70 kilograms and instinctively challenge predators such as cheetahs. Laurie's program has been a great success - the dogs scare away the cheetahs instead of farmers shooting them.

The reason I know about this is I caught a TV show the other evening in which a Namibian goat farmer was talking about these remarkable dogs.

It is the dog who takes the goats foraging for food each day. The farmer stays at home. The unsupervised dog sticks with the goats all day, protecting them while they are out in the bush. In the evening, the unassisted dog rounds the goats up and escorts them back to the farm where they are locked up for the night.

The farmer believes the dog comes back for two reasons - for a big bowl of food, and for love. As he spoke to the TV interviewer, the farmer sat with his dog, fussing over it and it was clear the dog was relishing the praise. Without love, the farmer's opinion was that the dog would not do his job half as well.

It seems to me that the farmer is managing his only "member of staff" perfectly.

+ He has picked a worker who is ideally suited for the job.
+ As a result of getting the right staff, the farmer trusts the staff to do the job unsupervised.
+ The farmer consistently praises his staff, offering affection and respect that is reciprocated.

Do you manage your employees as well as this?

Now, of course, we all have had experience of employees from hell. Every human has the capacity for duplicitous and dishonest behaviour - these undesirable traits are not in a dog's nature. A dog is by nature a highly loyal, team player.

If we select the right people and then treat them correctly, we find that the farmer's successful experiences can be reproduced in the workplace, be it a shop, factory or office.

Joe Lexell
SystemX Research
London U.K.