One of the reasons I strongly recommend reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is really because it is easy to read and he makes use of basic analogy to drive his point across.

The stories he used in his book are not totally new, or at least not to me. But he shared it from a personal development perspective whereas I heard it about 25-30 years ago, its was the lessons on morals and ethics and kindness that were highlighted to me.

This is a story of the goose that lays the golden eggs. I’ve taken a bit of time to do up a video for this and I hope it benefits youtube viewers too. It is about 4 minutes and 20 seconds long, so sit back and hope you learn something from this video.

In his book, Stephen Covey emphasized the importance of maintaining a good P/PC Balance. So what is this P/PC Balance?

P is the production or better known as the ‘Golden Egg’. The PC is the production capacity (Goose) and it is the one that creates or generates that P.

I have a small car that I have been driving for the past 8-9 years. This car provides me and family with convenience, protection from weather, helps me carry stuffs for business or leisure and even made the not-so-accessible place more accessible. This car is the PC that generates or provides me with the P that I listed earlier.

If I keep on using the car, enjoying what it provides for me without taking some time to look into the ‘needs’ of my car, one day it will fail me. For example, I need to make sure it is given the needed servicings, tyre change, cleaning, etc. If I want to continue to use this car and enjoy its benefits, I must invest in maintaining it.

You get the idea?

The same goes to our body. You use it, you enjoy it. But if you do not take responsibility of maintaining it, it will fail you.

This is how life is ‘designed’. It applies to relationships, businesses, investments and even the houses that we live in.

P/PC Balance at work.

This is something that you need to pay a very close attention to, especially if you are in a management or leadership position.

If you do not, you will lose any talent that comes by you.

I have experienced working with two particular companies. Both were in the same industry and was founded in the same year.

Company A is a very sales driven company. They have grown aggressively for a couple of years and in that process, they’ve managed to recruit some talents and potential talents. Company A enjoyed the P of the business and they neglect the PC element of the equation.

In one fell swoop, all the talents, potential talents and anyone who is hungry left Company A. The ones that are left are those who are either hoping the company will change or they were looking around.

If you think that those remaining are the more loyal ones, think again. They are just looking for a big break or opportunity and when that happens, you will be dangling.

So who do you want to blame? It’s the person you see in the mirror.

Company B, on the other hand, is a competitor to Company A. Their founders seemed to maintain a very good P/PC Balance.

Company B grew steadily from its humble beginnings, recruiting one talent at a time, winning one customer at a time. Today, they have a very engaged team, always there for one another. These hungry talent was soon running the operations of the company independently and that gave the owners the ability to start another 2-3 companies and got this team of talent involved whenever needed.

I spoke to the employees and freelancers from Company B, nothing but good words. Were they paid more? Not really. But the difference lies in how they get treated by the company.

Two companies, founded on the same year, fighting for businesses in the same industry. Their different management and leadership principle and values separates the outcome.

Talent will join your company for various reasons but 90% of the time, they leave for only one reason..

One way to take care of your company’s P/PC Balance is to take care of your staff.. and your staff will take care of your business.

Many people fail to balance their P/PC and are paying the price for it. Those who balance their P/PC balance will be reaping rewards many times over..

Think about it.. What are the P/PCs in your life?

Identify them, balance them.

Need a tool to identify your P/PC? I have prepared a PDF Identification Checklist that you might find useful. Just click here… Hope it helps.