production and production capacity principle

"P/PC Balance" is a natural law, principle that many people break against. This principle can be easily understood by remembering Aesop's fable of the goose and the golden egg.

The fable is the story of a poor farmer who one day discovers in the nest of his pet goose a glittering golden egg. At first, he thinks it must be some kind of trick. But as he starts to throw the egg aside, he has second thoughts and takes it in to be appraised instead.

The egg is pure gold! The farmer can't believe his good fortune. He becomes even more incredulous the following day when the experience is repeated. Day after day, he awakens to rush to the nest and find another golden egg. He becomes fabulously wealthy; it all seems too good to be true.

But with this increasing wealth comes greed and impatience. Unable to wait day after day for the golden eggs, the farmer decides he will kill the goose and get them all at once. But when he opens the goose, he finds it empty. There are no golden eggs - and now there is no way to get any more. The farmer has destroyed the goose that produced them.

Within this fable is a natural law, a principle - the basic definition of effectiveness. Most people see effectiveness from the golden egg paradigm: the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are.

But as the story shows, true effectiveness is a function of to things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose).

If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on the golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the assets that produce golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won't have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose.

Effectiveness lies in the balance - what we call the P/PC balance. P stands for production of the desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.