I love helping entrepreneurs improve their teamwork. When I came across the Super Chicken concept again recently it pinged me as being totally relevant, especially right now with the state of the workplace.
If you aren’t familiar with the Super Chicken I am going to give you a high-level look at the concept and then encourage you to watch the videos I will be including. If you are familiar with it, I’d like to challenge you to look at it again with fresh eyes while thinking of the current workplace environment.
William Muir, an evolutionary biologist at Purdue University studied chickens. He wanted to know what could make his chickens more productive, so he created an experiment.
The experiment produced some very interesting results, not only for chickens but for our own companies and how teamwork can be improved.
Egg production was measured in eggs laid per chicken, he took the most productive and put them in a group by themselves and did this for 6 generations. The "normal" group actually increased production and they were all healthy. The super chicken group only had 3 members because they pecked the others to death.
Two big takeaways from this for me are:
- "What happens between people really counts."
- Each business has their unique vision. I’d like to suggest that the vision is important but what happens between the people could be more important. What if our vision also allowed for the connection of our team in a way that could impact them individually and as a team for their entire life?
- "Bringing out the best in others is how they found the best in themselves."
- One of the things I have learned in life is that giving truly is receiving. Volunteering my time to help an organization does something special to my heart and creates a connection that would not have been there if I was just a participant in the group. When we set our team up for success and help them bring out the best in themselves, I do believe that it will bring out the best in us as well.
If you’d like to read more about this concept, you can find it in Rare Leadership written by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder.
I also found two Ted Talk videos that talk about Super Chickens:
Margaret Heffernan Ted Talks : Why It's Time to Forget the Pecking Order at Work
I would love to know your thoughts about how learning this information will be able to help you with your own team.
Coach Dale
Playlists — music can change your mood, enjoy some of the songs that encourage me.
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