My 8th best lesson of 2015:
Poor Decision – Blue Bell ice cream is a legendary Texas product made for more than a century at the ‘little creamery in Brenham,’ a town of 16,000 about an hour from our house. In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked a listeria outbreak – including three deaths – to the family-owned company. Blue Bell was slow to respond, choosing a limited recall before ultimately being forced to shut down all production. One of my clients is a cheese manufacturer in Wisconsin. When I told the head of product safety about the approach by the nation’s third largest ice cream maker, he shared the Farmer’s Rule: “Your first loss is the cheapest. Do the right thing and fix it today.”