By the time rule number five: "Everyone should be well-rounded" appeared on the side of the barn, the other rules, painted only months earlier, were already chipping and fading. And that was certainly symbolic of the state of the once-beautiful farm. Clara had been absolutely right -- the stock price had fallen drastically. That, combined with the operating losses, put the continued existence of AAA Industries Inc. in jeopardy. And the chilling fact for the animals on the farm was that also threatened their continued existence as live stock.
The only animal on the entire farm who derived even the slightest benefit from the situation was Ringolette, whose anxiety -- combined with the morning jogs the cows were taking to increase stamina -- had caused her to lose 55 pounds. In fact, she was less rounded than she had ever been.
"She still looks beautiful," Farmer Goode said, rocking gently on the front porch of his old house. On a lovely Sunday afternoon, he'd returned to the farm for the very first time to see all his old friends.
"Well, she's lost more than 50 pounds," Mo replied, "but still . . . she's a big cow."
Farmer Goode seemed confused. "Oh, Ringolette? No, I meant the whole place. Looks like you're doing a good job, Mo. I knew you would."
"I wish," he said almost to himself. "Farmer Goode," he finally admitted, "I have to be honest with you. We're in trouble. I've read every business book I could find. I've been trying to use all the best management methods, but . . . but it isn't working." A single tear formed in the corner of his eye and rolled gently down his long, long snout.
Just then, Piggy Banks jogged by screaming loudly, "Moink, moink!"
Farmer Goode watched him in amazement. "What the tarnation was that?" he turned to Mo, "Wasn't that the Aristotle kid? What kind of noise was that he was making?"
"He's doing some training," Mo admitted somewhat reluctantly. "He's practicing cow herding. Unfortunately, he's having some problems learning a second language. See, we want all the animals on the farm to be well-rounded, to be good at a lot of different things."
"Yes sir, I see," Farmer Goode said, "I definitely see." After a moment of silence, he leaned back in his rocker, took a long silent drag on his pipe, and told Mo the secret of his success. "Let me tell you a little story, Mo. You know, when I took over the farm from my father, I wanted to bring in all the new ways. I read all the books. I consulted the experts." He laughed at a distant memory, "One time, I remember, when transcendental meditation was the biggest thing, I brought one of them gurus to teach all the animals how to meditate. I figured if they were calm, they'd work better. This fella did all his ooming and ahhhming, and the next thing I knew, all the animals were in some kind of deep trance. One of them, in fact, was your great-great-grandfather."
"Really?" Mo was amazed. "What happened?"
"Took us three days to get everybody back to normal. And a couple of goats walked off the farm saying they were going to live on a mountain in Tibet. We never heard a baa from them again.
"The point is, Mo, I tried everything. And then one day I realized that the best thing I could be was me. I was a farmer. I know, you look at me and you think movie hunk, astronaut, private detective, minister; but the fact is that I was a farmer, from the gunk on my boots to the hair-growing slop I put on my head. I was a farmer, and I was good at it, and it was what I loved doing most.
"After a while, I left the animals alone, and they pretty much figured out the same thing I did. So from then on I made sure every animal was doing what he or she was best at doing. I gave them as much support as I could, plenty of good nutritious food," he paused here, and sighed, "'cept maybe for that health food thing I tried in the 80s . . . good shelter, all the tools they needed, and a big dose of encouragement. I kept it simple: What's your work, who you are, how you gonna get there. Sure, we had our problems -- every business does from time to time -- but overall, it worked out fine."
Mo glanced at the growing pile of management books that was threatening to collapse the porch, "But what about all those books?"
"Oh," Farmer Goode said, "those books are very important. In fact, there's a few of them that are real good. I found the best ones pretty much relied on common sense -- the sort of things that I already knew but I didn't know that I knew, if you know what I mean.
"The rest of them -- particularly those big thick ones with all the highfalutin' theories, they're real important too. You best keep 'em somewhere real safe and dry, because if one night in December, God forbid, you should happen to run out of firewood, those books'll work just fine."