Jim Whitt, Contributing Editor

Tales of the New West
Last April, I started working on a new book. As I struggled with what approach to take, a lightening bolt of inspiration struck and I started writing. Here’s a brief overview of the storyline.

The year is 2030 and freelance writer Bob Foshee is dispatched by a magazine to write about Burns Marcus, whose ranch was near bankruptcy 25 years earlier. It was at that time that Marcus, searching for answers, attended a cattlemen’s convention in San Antonio and heard a speaker who provoked him to radically change the way he approached his business. This was the catalyst that led Marcus to start Diamond Enterprises, which becomes the model organization of the 21 st century. While interviewing Burns at his ranch in Oklahoma, Bob rides pasture, ropes a few steers and discovers the key to Burns Marcus’ success — the power of purposeful leadership.

Now, here’s the story behind the story. In August of 2004, a few short months after I started writing the book, I was contacted about speaking at the Cattle Industry Annual Convention in San Antonio. Without any prior knowledge that the convention would be in San Antonio or that I would be speaking there, I had already written about it — before it ever took place.

I entitled the book Ridin’ for the Brand: The Power of Purposeful Leadership. It’s a futuristic-Western, novel-business book. As strange as that may seem, the story came to me naturally. Although the book is written as an allegory, it is based largely on my experiences of working with people and organizations in the beef industry — particularly associations like NCBA and its affiliates. As a consultant, I’ve worked with many of these organizations, helping them to envision the future and determine what they and their members will have to do to be part of it. In a sense, Ridin’ for the Brand is a collaboration. It’s about what the future will look like viewed through the eyes of these many people and what it will take to be successful in our rapidly changing world. But I didn’t write the book exclusively for the agribusiness market. I think it will appeal to a much broader audience. Why? Because the principles apply to any organization in any industry, and it is — as unconventional as it may be — a Western. No other literary genre in history has proven to capture the imagination of people as has the Western.

What is it about the Western that draws people like moths to light? I found the best explanation in Stories of the Golden West, a trilogy of Western tales by Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey and Max Brand. The stories were compiled and edited by John Tuska who writes in the forward, “There is no other kind of literary endeavor that has so repeatedly posed the eternal questions – how do I wish to live?, in what do I believe?, what do I want from life?, what have I to give to life? – as the Western story.” So, in psychological terms, the Western represents what Abraham Maslow called the highest of human needs – “self-actualization” — the need to fulfill our own unique potential.

Tuska goes on to explain that the Western story is “consistently banned by totalitarian governments” because in the Western “it is each man’s and each woman’s inalienable right to find his own path in life, to follow his own vision, to achieve his own destiny — even if one should fail in the process.” I had never thought of it in quite that way before, but the Western embodies the American experience — the exercise of our free will. Our pursuits may lead to success or failure, but the outcome is secondary to the fact that we have the opportunity to succeed — or to fail. “Such a principle undermines the very foundations of totalitarianism and collectivism,” writes Tuska, “because it cannot be accommodated by the political correctness of those who would seek to exert power over others and replace all options with a single, all-encompassing, monolithic pattern for living.”

In the Denial of Death, Ernest Becker writes, “People are capable of the highest generosity and self-sacrifice. But they have to feel and believe what they are doing is truly heroic, timeless and supremely meaningful. The crisis of modern society is precisely that people no longer feel heroic.”

I agree with Becker. We live in a time of unparalleled prosperity. The biggest health problem we have in this country is obesity. We have air conditioned homes, cars, trucks and tractors. We have satellite TV, computers and cell phones. But we no longer feel heroic. I think that is why the Western still has such an appeal. Our lives need meaning, adventure and heroism. The Western contains all of those elements.

When I was attending Northern Oklahoma College, I had a history instructor who made fun of me because I wore my boots, jeans and cowboy hat on campus. He accused me of being a “romantic.” What he was really saying was that I was “not grounded in reality” — which is one way romantic can be defined. I looked romantic up in the dictionary and found another definition that I preferred: “Marked by the emotional appeal of the heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious or idealized.”

I think there is an element of romanticism for anyone engaged in the cattle business. Our heritage is grounded in the lore of the Old West. But maybe my history instructor was right in a way — we may not always be grounded in reality. There’s a 1927 Saturday Evening Post cover painted by Norman Rockwell that depicts this kind of romanticism. It features an old cowboy sporting a Baxter Black mustache sitting next to an old phonograph player with a far-away look in his eyes. He’s dressed out in his prairie best wearing his hat, bandana, boots, spurs, chaps and a six-gun. In his hand is a record with a title that speaks volumes: “Dreams of Long Ago.” I can relate to this old cowboy — I’ll bet you can, too. If only we could turn the clock back. But time is a one-way street — it only moves forward, and we must too.

I watched an interesting documentary about the history of Western movies. It pointed out that the recurring theme of the Western is always about “moving on.” As our nation expanded westward, there was always another frontier to conquer. The Western is really the same story just told in different ways. It will never die — because there’s always a new chapter. There are new frontiers to conquer in the beef industry. It will be an adventure and it will require pioneers — heroes who are willing to take on the challenges of the unknown, change, rejection, failure and yes, success. And like the ranches of yesteryear, organizations of the future will be looking for people who will “ride for the brand.” As Burns Marcus says in my book, “We’re looking for people who want to ride for the Diamond brand — because they believe that what we’re doing is heroic, adventurous and idealistic.” It’s another chapter in the continuing saga of the West — the New West.

Please e-mail comments to Jim Whitt jim@whittenterprises.com

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