It's natural; most of you are entrepreneurs. You started your companies from scratch and built them up with your drive. Now, you’d like to relax and envision morphing yourself into a shepherd: building a management team and empowering it to make sound decisions. However, you realize that leopards never lose their spots nor will you lose the urge to strap on your guns when you enter into negotiations with your perceived opponents - customers and suppliers.

Shepherds also have liabilities. They tend to "pass" on opportunities unless they're a sure thing and they never build businesses from scratch. They have too much faith, and glitches in the road of life leave them badly shaken (the UPS strike’s affect on Just-In-Time warehousing). They concentrate on caring for (and shearing) their flock while the world around them changes. The best example, outside our industry, of course, was when cowboy Steve Jobs of Apple was replaced by a series of "professional managers". They solidified the company and delivered dividends to the shareholders - but only for a while.

To the outside world and to other executives you can be a cowboy but it is essential that you learn to interact with your factory as a manufacturing shepherd:

• Production best moves through factories by pulling (the shepherd's crook) rather than pushing (stampeding the herd) or lassoing bottlenecks. Keeping focused on the delivery date and the parameters of satisfying the client while making a profit on the job are better than announcing: "We have a big order and everyone is expected to saddle up tomorrow for the cattle drive."

• Engineers and estimators don't normally share the "executive" culture and fail to understand the need for cowboys to get the herd moving by pushing and hollering. They prefer simple cause and effect thinking and look for politically free solutions.

• Operator culture is even more complex (see my recent article "Bonding Panels and People") and is compounded by the mix of first generation factory workers, ethnic diversity, etc. Top management is surprised when no one stampedes to work overtime or jumps for joy at a raise of a $1.00 per hour. Still, motivating operators to work longer hours is much easier than getting them to improve performance or quality. Workers understand but resent management's unrealistic expectations regarding their tools, available hours and process information. Their relationship to a cowboy boss becomes a balancing act of getting the job done and working to-the-rules to avoid trouble.

The Marlboro Man had a good ride but died of lung cancer; the shepherd's life is safer but dull. (Children dream of being cowboys when they grow up - I've never met one whose goal was to be a shepherd.) Real cowboys and shepherds are loners, dictators of cattle and sheep, and spend little time interacting with people. Perhaps it’s time to abandon these childish stereotypes. You have to deal with people (equals in species if nothing else) and become a team leader. Your first assignment is to answer the question: "What does your company want to be when it grows up?"

Say what you may but:

- Companies like countries often need a man on a horse.

- Shepherds are sometimes overly dependent on their sheepdog.