So here’s the thing. I’m driving across one of our fine Midwest states, and while passing a field I saw one of those really huge hay rolls (the kind that looks like a big jelly roll) you often see in cattle country, and it sparked the memory of a lesson I learned from a… well, a cow. Yep, you read it right. A cow.

Isn’t it funny, sometimes, where revelations come from? I mean, you can be tooling along, minding your own business, and wham! Something in the ol’ grey cells makes a connection, and you’re suddenly struck with a Deep Thought. You know, the kind you might see on a brass plaque somewhere, perhaps even written so Every Word Starts With Capital Letters.

Well, something like that happened to me once while driving from Houston to Austin. For those of you who don’t know, this route (after leaving the flat coastal plain Houston sits on) passes through some beautiful rolling hills. It was a fine summer day, and I was making good time (at the speed limit, of course – really), and as I glanced to my left I happened to see something that has stuck with me ever since.

Back off the hiway, an old pickup truck, carrying one of those big rolls of hay in the back, had just topped a nearby hill and was heading down a dirt track toward a manger at the bottom of the hill. There were about a hundred head of those black-and-white cattle (hey, I’m a city boy) scattered around, and I could tell they were excited about the truck’s appearance because they were all running toward it. They surely knew their dinner was in that truck.

As my eye followed the dirt track downhill to the manger, I noticed one single cow, heading, not toward the truck, but straight toward the manger! Interesting, don’t you think? All those cows headed in one direction, but only one going the other way. Of the entire herd, he (or is it she?) seemed to know exactly where dinner was going to be served: at the manger.

I don’t know why that scene caught my eye, but it has stayed with me all these years. I certainly don’t remember much else about that trip. But for some reason, as I played it back in my mind, something clicked, and I learned something valuable. Are you ready? Here it comes:

“If You Want To Be First In Line For Dinner, You Have To Know Where The Food Is Being Served.”

Not exactly Shakespere, is it? Nevertheless, there’s the germ of a thought here. All the other cows were running around, chasing a moving target, and taking a long roundabout path that would leave them hot, tired, and breathless once they arrived at the manger. Now c’mon, is that any way to enjoy a meal?

But that one cow seemed to recognize that by taking his (or is it her?) time, and going directly to the manger, he (or is it she?) could get there first, and with less effort. This cow would be first in line, so to speak.

All right, so what? So, consider… innovation.

Innovation is defined in the American Heritage dictionary as “the act of introducing something new”. So how does innovation happen? It happens, quite simply, because someone stops following the herd long enough to consider what the real goal is, then finds a way to do it easier, cheaper, faster, more efficiently… to be there first.

Not a bad lesson from a cow, wouldn’t you say?