A One-Minute Management Course From a Rancher comes to us from a high school buddy of mine, Ryan Lum. (See my post on this blog on September 23, 2008 entitled, North Shore Cattle Company)

He’s now a rancher on the famed North Shore of Oahu, and sent this concise and practical email:

A  man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.

The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.  When she opens the door, there stands
Bob, the next-door  neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, “I’ll give you $800 to drop that
towel.”

After  thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob.

After a  few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves. The woman wraps back up in the  towel and goes back upstairs.

When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, “Who was that?”

“It was Bob the next door neighbor,” she replies.

“Great!”,  the husband says, “did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?”

The Moral of the Story:

If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders, in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.