The sacker
I plopped down on a chair in the outdoor bar at Bobby O’Brien’s pub on King Street in Kitchener, Ontario. I was feeling a little verklempt after dropping off my younger son at the University of Waterloo. Game one of the National Football League season was on all of the TVs, including a massive screen mounted on a brick wall in the square. The Kansas City Chiefs were at home to the Baltimore Ravens. On their very first drive, the Baltimore offensive line was flagged three times for the same illegal formation penalty. This is unusual.
“What’s going on with these penalties?” I asked the young guy with backwards cap sitting two chairs over.
He said the NFL officials were more strictly enforcing a rule on positioning of offensive linemen. They have to be in line with the centre, more or less. They can’t set up behind the line of scrimmage to gain a step on the oncoming pass rushers. The rule is meant to give defensive backs an equal chance to pressure quarterbacks and get more sacks. The big Baltimore O-line was slow to catch on.
This opened up a conversation. The young guy works in construction. He is from Kitchener, is working in Thunder Bay on a new jail, and was back in town for a wedding. He mentioned a friend, also in construction, who is working on a new Google office in Kitchener. “You know the office has a climbing wall and a slide!” he said.
Why would Google do this?
I found an article in Architectural Digest called, “You won’t believe work gets done at these three Google offices.” The author, Katherine McLaughlin, wrote about the bright, colourful buildings with comfortable common areas and slides, climbing walls, nap pods and basketball courts. This is all “intentional.” The article says Google operates on a “belief that if the people who are working there are happy, healthy, and comfortable, then the company itself will thrive too. It’s in this idea that the jungle-gym-like elements that Google offices are known for become as integral as a desk or a filing cabinet.” The article then quotes Joshua Bridie, Google’s director of global interior design: “They’re there because there is a need for the brain to disconnect and reconnect, so you can refocus your energies in an incredibly productive way.”
Google isn’t in the business of giving people fun things to do at the office. They are in the business of finding creative ways to make money. That creativity comes from attracting top talent and keeping them at their creative bests.
This reminds me of an article I wrote recently about Jeremy Oatey, whom I met in April. The U.K. farmer keeps on top of all government programs and how to best profit from them. He also has a wildly diverse operation, including a dog walking park he built on an “inconvenient” field. Customers book time slots online, pay £6 per half hour and get a code to access the park for their time slot. “It runs itself,” Oatey says. “I can’t believe it really.”
One of your goals this winter could be to think of one new money maker. In the business management article in this issue, Farm Management Canada executive director, Heather Watson, writes about clear and actionable SMART goals. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. The SMART framework, Watson writes, helps ensure your goals are not just dreams or wishes, but can be realized.
You’ll think of something. If you need time on a climbing wall to disconnect and then reconnect and get those creatives juices flowing, go for it.
Like the NFL, agriculture always seems to have new rules. Whether these rules relate to trade, climate policy, crop insurance, labour, taxes or when penciling out profit margins, farmers always have to be ready to adapt. It can be exhausting. Time off, when possible, is important. Even if you just take a week off at home and watch movies. Disconnecting and reconnecting is essential
to creativity, and creativity – as Google and Jeremy Oatey remind me – is often at the root of business success.
New rules sometimes mean the quarterback gets pressured and sacked more often. New rules also mean an opportunity to get more sacks yourself. Be the sacker.