The Goose That Lays Golden Eggs

You would have probably heard about the story of the prized goose that lays golden eggs. The goose is an invaluable possession and you would certainly want to get your hands on one if you had the opportunity. If you had one, you would take excellent care of it because it brings to you a steady stream of valuable asset, the golden eggs.

Would you not want to own the goose that laid the golden eggs? I would definitely want many of them, if possible.

So then, where does a golden egg laying goose come from?

As any form of life starts, that goose probably started as a small little gosling. A gosling is ugly looking, unable to lays eggs, noisy and completely reliant on its parent goose for care. A great amount of patience is required to nurture and raise them. I bet I would if I knew that they would grow up to be goose which lays golden eggs.

But! Most of the time we won’t even know if they will live long enough to lay eggs at all, much less lay golden eggs.

It is a risky business to raise a gaggle of goslings and in the worst case scenario, none of them can lay golden eggs when they grow up.

Raising gosling to become the goose that laid golden eggs is just like building a business from the ground up.

There are many business leaders amidst our senior management team who live in the moment of today. While living in the present is important as we ought to savour the moment, an excessive focus on the present can lead to the demise of these goslings.

This is what I like to call the “now” syndrome. In business, we cannot afford to be so myopic and to neglect the long-term strategies and goals. We need to balance between steering our ship to avoid the rocky shores now while heading towards our end destination.

Under a “myopic” business leader, the goslings may not survive the journey. Some of these business leaders may slaughter the goslings for food now rather than to nurture and raise them up to lay golden eggs.

In this case, the "now" factor is stronger than "future" factor because nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty.

A leader who wants to reach a destination far away needs to have faith that the destination does exist, have the trust that gosling can make the journey, and belief that there will be rewards at the end, namely the golden eggs. All the ingredients needed to make this happen are things unseen.

When business leaders are fearful, they may abandon their trust in the younger goslings for a short term solution which may solve the current issue but could eventually lead to a downfall in the future.

So, what kind of leader are you? Do you fear the future and the unknown?

Fear not my friend. The future is now. See the unseen, have the belief, faith, and trust

Talk to Pong: chiangfp@rt-ca.com or +65 6603 8229.

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