K-State Research and Extension

“Enough is as Good as a Feast”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

A friend recently interviewed for positions at several different corporate agricultural firms and was intrigued by how different the culture or environment felt at the different organizations. Although all were similar in the nature and scale of their business, and probably even their communication and management styles, he sensed a subtle, intangible, difference. While all of the firms appeared to offer pleasant and rewarding work environments, one firm stood out as having more of a “family” or “community” atmosphere.

Granted, my friend is at the upper end of people who value and are sensitive to the more human aspects of the work environment, but that doesn’t discount the potential impact of this effect. Who can measure the value of the intangibles of the workplace in hiring and retention of employees?

More than ever, quality employees have choices in their career path. To their credit, ag employers have been tremendously responsive to the demands of prospective employees. Agricultural careers are increasingly promising from the aspects of financial reward, upward mobility, and quality of work life.

The “easy” part of the human resources equation is to continually canvass the entire job marketplace to make sure your compensation package is competitive. Much more difficult to monitor is your internal work environment.

What do current employees tell prospective employees about their work life? Do they “sell” your company for you in your absence, or do they have an attitude of “it’s just another job”? Just like the adage of “your customers can be your best advertisers”, your current employees can be your most effective recruiters. Or they can scare prospective hires away just as easily.

Although a bit more money in the starting salary may get a new hire’s attention short-term, turnover costs a lot more. You want to make “permanent” hires whenever possible. In order to ensure that valuable employees remain content and productive is to continually keep compensation equitable and competitive, but also invest time and energy to keep quality of work life high.

“Enough is as good as a feast.” Money will only placate employees for a short while if they have other opportunities. We invest in what we value, and we must invest time and energy to discover ways to create the kind of workplace where people want to stay, and to keep quality people on our team.

“Experiencing Pain”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

In Dr. Henry Cloud’s book Necessary Endings, he discusses “pruning” of activities in our professional or personal life which may be using up precious resources that may better be implemented on higher impact activities—those very activities that we’d really like to be “about”.

One indicator of the need for change is whether our organization is experiencing “pain”. That “pain” could be lack of expected success in certain aspects of the business, poor interpersonal relationships in the workplace, or lack of clear leadership within a team.

Discomfort is normal for any organization, because change is normal. “Pain” can be temporary and part of normal growth such as: a downturn in the economy; loss of a key team member; a newly promoted manager is developing relationships and their own leadership style. This type of “pain” can be endured and will likely lead to future success.

However, other “pain” is chronic and not part of normal, healthy, growth. This “pain” must be dealt with and eliminated. Examples of abnormal and unnecessary “pain”: a poor workplace environment due to a disgruntled team member; lack of effective leadership on a team; permanent loss of sales due to a fundamental shift in the marketplace.

These are the signals that an ending is necessary, and this is the hardest and yet most important part of management. Like a surgeon, the effective manager must (1) diagnose the source of “pain”; (2) critically evaluate the prognosis (will it lead to healing on its own? or must the cause be eliminated?); and (3) take the necessary, and often difficult, steps to moving the organization forward.

This is the pathway to finding success on the other side of pain.

“Change is Normal”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

In Dr. Henry Cloud’s book Necessary Endings, he discusses “pruning” of activities in our professional or personal life which may be using up precious resources that may better be implemented on higher impact activities—those very activities that we’d really like to be “about”.

One factor that keeps some managers from initiating the pruning process and holding on to unproductive activities is simple, good ol’ fashioned resistance to change. More than just uncomfortable, much of this resistance comes from a deeply held, even subconscious, mindset that change is bad, change is dangerous, change is risky, etc.

Although change always brings with it an element of uncertainty, the simple fact is that change is inevitable. In other words, change is NORMAL! To deny this is to deny the very realities of life on earth. Sooner or later all businesses, industries, families, and organizations will undergo change. How can we doubt this? One adage from sales highlighting the need for constant new customer recruitment is this: “clients eventually all die, retire, or move away.” But these outcomes are true of our colleagues, friends, and family members as well. Change is as normal and inevitable as anything we choose to hold true.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t alter some managers’ emotional response to change: change is still uncomfortable. It’s been said (by me anyway) that “Everybody likes change—when they are the one driving the change!” Consider buying a new pickup. We lo-o-o-o-o-ve that kind of change. But when change is thrust upon us we all feel controlled and out of control, like walking on jello.

But that doesn’t erase the aforementioned truism: change is normal and inevitable. So the effective manager has really only one decision: get out of management, or become pro-active, embracing and managing through change whenever necessary, and initiating change whenever possible.

Procrastination in the face of change doesn’t improve the final outcome, it only limits the number of pathways available in negotiating the rocky slope ahead. By constantly searching trends in order to anticipate oncoming change, and pro-actively initiating adjustments of internal operations to accommodate the changing internal and external environments, the effective manager can minimize the ultimate impact of change on the organization.

“Letting Go”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

In Dr. Henry Cloud’s book Necessary Endings, he discusses “pruning” of activities in our professional or personal life which may be using up precious resources that may better be implemented on higher impact activities—those very activities that we’d really like to be “about”.

But that pruning process is easier said than done. We develop significant emotional attachment to those activities in which we invest greatly of ourselves. When we come to the point of eliminating that activity from our lives or our business, there needs to be acknowledgement of the very real sense of loss that will accompany cessation of that activity.

This may seem completely off-base—a little too “touchy-feely”—but it actually makes sense if we consider it at a deeper level. We always hope our employees will “take ownership” of their portion of the business, so that they will conserve inputs and care about the outcomes. So why should we expect those who have “taken ownership” of an activity to somehow not feel like they’ve lost something when it goes away?

Dr. Cloud discusses one interesting example: when the management team decided they needed to shut down a given business unit, they actually reserved a day when the group working in that unit could celebrate the successes of their efforts, but also openly “mourn” the loss of that to which they had invested countless hours and their creative energy, and to which they had grown attached—they had “taken ownership”.

This process serves 2 valuable purposes. First, it is a somewhat formalized, structured, and acceptable form of the “mourning” process which would happen for the employees in private or in small groups anyway— after all, they’ve lost something they care about. But more importantly, by putting this formalized final punctuation mark at the end of this terminated activity, all of those involved can more quickly move forward with and immerse themselves in the next proposed activity because they know that the old activity is officially gone and is not coming back.

This is true of business ventures, personal activities, and even of interpersonal relationships. Once we make the (hopefully well-informed and wise) decision to intentionally move away from something, from some activity, or from someone, we need to recognize that our sense of loss is real and normal; we should feel o.k. to grieve what we’ve lost; we need to re-iterate why we must move in the new direction; and then we need to deliberately move forward.

“On Pruning Roses”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

There is a book by Dr. Henry Cloud called “Necessary Endings”(© 2010 HarperCollins, New York, NY) that I recommend for anyone who wants to start moving forward in their business or personal lives.

The primary theme of the book is about identifying areas of our work or personal life that need to end. By intentionally moving away from those areas we have the opportunity to control and improve the outcome of the ending, and of what comes after.

Cloud uses the metaphor of pruning a rose bush. A rose bush will make many, perhaps hundreds of beautiful roses, but to allow the bush to create a few truly spectacular, award winning roses, something has to go. So the gardener prunes the dead growth, and the diseased growth. But they must also prune otherwise healthy roses which do not have the ability to become great, but which are sapping resources from those roses that do have the potential for greatness.

We are all adept at pruning dead or sickly areas from our lives—those areas are usually easy to identify. But how many of us are able or willing to cut away areas that are actually healthy and thriving but which may be using precious resources that are needed by other areas of activity? Those activities may actually be wholesome and beneficial, but may not be moving us toward what we ultimately want our lives or business to be about.

Every person and every business is fully using 100% of their available resources; few of us would say that at the end of the week, month, or year, we’ve got a big, healthy reserve left over for more activities. The first step then is to critically evaluate what we want to be about: our core competency. Then evaluate what activities are moving us in that direction and which are not. Then we have the opportunity—and the obligation—to practice the precious gift of the art of saying “no”.

We all have limited resources. And we all have a vision for what we want to become, personally and professionally. By pruning the dead, the diseased, and even some healthy but distracting activities, we actually improve the likelihood of achieving that grand vision.

“Outside the Box”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

It seems like every management book or retreat focuses on “thinking outside the box”. And during stable economic times, that’s more of a luxury and a way to prepare for the future, kind of like saving for a rainy day.

But because of the drought, for beef producers getting outside the box is no longer a luxury or the ubiquitous management mantra, it’s a necessity!

We often hear things that fly in the face of convention and quickly dismiss them as extreme. But necessity is the mother of invention, and desperate times call for desperate measures. When the going gets tough, etc.

One idea that K-State Extension Cow/Calf Specialist Dr. Bob Weaber offered up at the recent K-State Beef Conference was: “Cull your replacements.” WHAT?!!!

Normally, yearling and 2-year-old heifers represent future genetic progress and the opportunity to cull less productive older females from the gene pool. That’s all still true; however, yearlings will eat a lot of feed over the next 2 years before providing any weaned calf income, and heifers will wean a lighter calf than an older cow, simply because they do not have mature reproductive or lactation systems, and because they are still using a portion of nutrient intake for growth.

Here are some sobering figures from USDA/NAHMS: 93% of cows exposed to a bull calf vs. 89% of heifers. 96% of bred cows wean a calf vs. 89% of bred heifers. 17% of heifers require assistance during calving vs. only 2% of mature cows.

These are tough numbers to swallow. But if we figure each weaned calf will be worth $900 gross, and if we held onto the 30% mature females we would have culled instead of replacing them with young stock, we can expect to wean 2 more calves per 100 cows (96 vs. 89% weaning rate × 30 females) for $1,800 increased gross return (perhaps more if we include the added weight for calves from mature females vs. those from heifers)—enough to pay for 3-4 cows’ entire winter feed bill.

This is certainly not the ideal path to genetic progress. However, 2 facts seem evident: demand for beef is growing and supply of calves is shrinking, which means the producer who can keep the factory together over the next few years should reap substantial rewards. But they will definitely need to get outside the box to reach that goal.

“Change Something”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

IBM, American automakers, Kodak and Polaroid. These are just some of the ever-present reminders that markets change, consumers change, the production environment changes, the world changes.

IBM executives were adamant that individual people would never want to own and operate their own computer. The “big three” American automakers insisted people would always want big, expensive cars. The Kodak and Polaroid camera empires were entrenched in systems that required film and paper.

One potential lesson to be learned from these and many other examples is that philosophies that were always “right” can become “wrong”, simply because the world slid out from underneath that production mantra.

In football, the quarterback throws the pass to where the already-sprinting receiver is GOING to be, not where he is right now. Even more impressive, a sprinting hockey player passes the puck to where another sprinting player will be a half second from now. The very survival of your business rests on this next choice of philosophies: either the world will not change substantially within the next 20-30 years, or it will.

Unfortunately, anticipating change is not easy, and the cost of the wrong direction may be devastating. That may be why many businesses simply allow change to affect them, paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong decision, they make no decision. And to go back to the football analogy, a successful quarterback will average 60-65% completion for a career—even the greatest miss a third of the time.

For those of us with gray around the temples, we could ride out the existing production environment and leave the rubble to those that come after us. But the sad waste in that approach and mindset is that the 40-somethings and 50-somethings of today are the very people with the experience and hind sight to best anticipate what will change and what will come after.

Change is coming, and it is here. The only question left is how will we respond?

“Paradigm Shift”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

We are all prisoners of our experience. Ag producers under 40 years old have never experienced a drought like the drought of 2011-2012. They may have only been teenagers during the drought of 1988 and can only remember what their elders may have talked about during the drought.

The drought of 2012 has certainly brought challenges to agriculture—challenges many producers have not faced before. But what becomes apparent is how different people respond during adversity. While some are held captive by “what we’ve always done”, others naturally and energetically seek out new ways to do things. Some avoid change until change is unavoidable, while others change as quickly as they are able to align the needed pieces. Sometimes, those slow to change are reluctant because they’ve been tremendously successful under the “old” paradigm, while others who are more “hungry” are willing to embrace the new adversity as a potential unconventional avenue to their own success.

Other times, it’s as simple as comfort with the existing way of doing things. But modern agriculture is capital intensive and markets are highly volatile. Comfort and change seem incompatible; change is inevitable and imminent, lurking just around the next corner. Comfort and complacency lead to a slothful loss of agility and nimbleness.

The beef industry is currently re-learning old lessons about ammoniation of wheat straw and corn stalks to improve their feeding value and to get the most value out of the crop. Early weaning of beef calves has taught us that young calves can be tremendously efficient at converting a high-quality diet to lean gain. Depending on the spring pricing opportunity for yearlings and available home-raised feed supplies, there may be an opportunity to add value to efficient, early-weaned calves, even with the current high feed costs.

If forage is in extremely short supply, survival may trump advancement; estimates suggest that beef producers with calves to sell in the next few years have an opportunity to capture record prices. In an attempt to keep the herd intact, some producers may cull replacement heifers simply out of the necessity to maximize immediate return on every feed dollar, retaining only the most productive mature females until the forage base and costs allow for a return to “business as usual”. While conventional wisdom says, “Replacement heifers represent our most progressive genetics!”, one could ask, “What good is genetic progress if I’m broke?”

“What we’ve always done” is not bad, wrong, or inappropriate. But the drought of 2011-2012 has taught us that we need to constantly re-evaluate what we do to make sure what we’re doing is right and best given the dynamics of production and the market place.

“Criticism: The Elusive Ingredient”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

Criticism: If you’re like most people that word doesn’t exactly conjure up images of a warm-and-fuzzy workplace. But when delivered properly, and in the appropriate context, criticism (the “constructive” part is implied) may be the missing ingredient from many dysfunctional teams.

Once again, we’ll use the manager-as-coach analogy. Imagine a basketball coach, who spends every day in the office, signing invoices, paying bills, and calling season ticket holders, but once a quarter, brings each player in for a performance review. Although it’s ridiculous to consider, that’s how some managers try to manage a team.

How can anyone manage, and provide timely, useful criticism, in appropriate context, if that manager doesn’t spend an abundance of time learning about each teammate and what they do on a daily basis and how they do it. This is the very reason some management theories hold that each manager should have no greater than 6-7 direct reports. More than that and the opportunity to spend abundant time with each person shrinks drastically.

Now imagine a different coach, who has won countless games and multiple championships, and has mentored hundreds of successful athletes, spending 2 hours every day on the floor with the players, leading drills and breaking down performance in real-time. This coach spends hours every day critiquing footwork, shooting technique, defensive body position, and on and on. This coach spends hour after hour, day after day, hammering away at the details of fundamental techniques that are taught to 8-year olds.

This coach is successful, not because of phone time and face time with the fan base, but because of intentional, unhurried, one-on-one time with each player, and a relentless pursuit of excellence in the fundamentals of the game.

Criticism can only be an effective component of teaching if the coach fully comprehends the needs of the student, and if the student trusts that the teacher fully comprehends the needs of the team. This blend can only be achieved by investing that most precious of resources: time.

“Let’s Be Honest, Really”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

Probably the clearest and most often used analogy for managing production teams is the sports team. But one connection between coaching and managing is that coaching and managing both require identification of faults and then providing means to improve on those deficiencies. This process of constantly working to make people better may be the most critical function of any successful leader.

This aspect of management isn’t about novel marketing spin or aggressive cost control. It’s about identifying the performance gaps of the team and of each individual on the team. But this part isn’t glamorous, nor is it easy. The only way to know your people’s strengths and weaknesses is by knowing your people, and that simply takes time.

The coaches who win close games are those who make the most effective half-time adjustments. They use time-outs to immediately fill a perceived void. Afterwards they take lessons from each game and drill on any deficiencies in order to become more complete the next game. Coaches who get the most from their players spend time observing them during practice and drilling those areas of weakness.

It would never occur to a successful coach to not tell a player about their weakness; both know that’s the only way to improve. But this is where the manager-as-coach analogy gets set aside. How many managers can honestly say they are completely candid with their team members? It’s obviously not about shaming the person into doing a better job, it’s about providing solutions for the deficiency—it’s about coaching. That’s yet another reason why managing people well is such hard work. That’s why we make such a big deal when a team wins a championship: We acknowledge that the championship wasn’t won on game day, but throughout the entire season and off-season before it—in fact the years of teaching, observation, and practice before it.

The critical part of this process comes back to the manager-as-coach. Make sure your people know you care about them and about making them more effective in their job. Once people know you care, and that you’re offering guidance to improvement, criticism is looked at as an opportunity to improve.

Honesty is at the heart of any truly beneficial mentoring relationship. The successful manager doesn’t ignore weaknesses just because they’re busy or because it might be uncomfortable, because this may be the very heart of effective leadership.