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excellence

Seeking Excellence

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This is a verbatim copy of Seth Godin’s daily blog from April 22, 2015:

Demand higher standards.

On a long flight a little while ago, I saw two couples watch movies while they let their six kids
run around like maniacs from take off to touchdown. A seven-year old actually punched me. (I didn’t return the punch).

A few days later, I saw the now-typical sight of kids in a decent restaurant eating french fries
and chicken fingers while watching a movie on a tablet.

And it’s entirely possible you have a boss that lets you do mediocre work, precisely whenever you feel like it.

I wish those kids had said, “Mom, Dad, raise your standards for me. I deserve it.”
And the sooner you find a boss who pushes you right to the edge of your ability to be excellent, the better.

Even if the boss is you.

I couldn’t help being captivated by this simple and direct message (Seth is famous for them.) In
agriculture on the Canadian Prairies, we’ve generally been just fine by being somewhere south of
excellent. We haven’t needed to be better in business because we use excellent production practices;
Canadian farmers are arguably the best producers in the world. We haven’t needed to be better in
business because money is cheap and easy to acquire; interest rates have never been lower and lending
terms continue to be very favorable. We’ve gotten away with being mediocre, or somewhere south of
excellent, in our business skills because “the average was just fine.”

We would be happy if every year we got average rainfall, average heat units, average weed pressure,
average yields, average prices, average input costs, etc. It would be easy to farm if everything was just
average.

But it’s not.

And if you’re average in your management of your business and all its risks, it is pretty tough to expect
excellent results. We’ve enjoyed a 7 year bull run on yields and prices which has permitted “average” to
disguise itself as “excellence.” Are we still comfy thinking that recent history is our new normal? I
listened to Dr David Kohl in person 4 years ago and he said then that these highs in yield and price are a
black swan, and not the new normal. “Normal” is “the average” and since the average has managed to
disguise itself as excellence over the last several years, what will happen when this black swan migrates
out of here?

When the black swan flies away and “normal” returns, “average” will not be sufficient. We will still be
excellent in production; we may still have cheap and easy access to money. As you read in Growing Farm
Profits Weekly on April 14, 2015, farming is a lot more than just production. And easy money is
dangerous when in the wrong hands. If there are no guarantees that Mother Nature will offer a growing
season to facilitate excellent production, it will take the excellent production practices for which we are
famous to just be average. That is “average” without its disguise.

As Seth wrote, the sooner you find a boss that pushes you to edge of your ability to be excellent, the
better. If you are your own boss, like you, like me, like all entrepreneurs, we must find a way to be
excellent.

Direct Questions

In what areas of your business is your proficiency less than excellent?

Have you greatly shifted the parameters of what you call “average?”

Considering all the risk you face each year as a farmer, can you afford to be anything less than excellent?

From the Home Quarter

The message here is not to suggest that anyone has intentionally done a poor job of running their farm.
What is being suggested is that the recent ag environment has permitted great success without
requiring excellence across all aspects of the business. I am supremely confident that will change, and
anything less than excellence through your entire farm will offer disappointing results.

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*The Innovation Adoption Curve www.b2binternational.com

Excellence is a choice. Have your competitors already chosen excellence? When it comes to employing
excellence in business proficiency, you want to be on the left side of the curve above. I have a mentor
who helps me to be and stay excellent. My mentor has a mentor who does the same for him. It’s not
easy, but it’s worth it. As I’ve said, and will continue to say, “Do what you do best, and get help for the
rest.”

If you want more than average, call me. The Department of Excellence is open for business!

information

How Good is Your Information?

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I’ve been staunchly encouraging (ok, pushing) my clients to up the ante on how they manage their
business information. As we look at 2015, it is clear that opportunities for profit will be harder to find
than in years past and we must use every tool at our disposal to make the best decisions possible.

Enter data management.

Why do you think retail spaces are designed the way they are? It comes from the retailer devoting
incredible resources to study the habits and behaviors of its shoppers. They take that information and
then design spaces in such a way that plays to the habits and behaviors of their shoppers so as to put
the desired products in front of their shoppers at the desired time and place during the shopping
experience. For example, they have learned that typically shoppers turn right versus left as soon as they
enter a store, and thus plan their store layout in a way that panders to a shopper’s subconscious
behavior AND the retailer’s intention to sell high margin items. Maybe it’s that shoppers turn left and
not right, but you get the point, so who cares? Business cares, that’s who.

Like that retail giant, you have the ability to make important business decisions based on specific
management data. You would use your historical agronomic data to decide which crop offers the best
profitability on each specific field (relative to rotation.) You review historical financial statements to
measure actual results versus projected results. You analyze soil test reports to determine how much
residual nutrient remains in your soil before making fertilizer purchases. This could go on and on.
I spend a lot of time working on True Cost of Production calculations and building Profit Curves for my
clients. I can only do a precise job with complete and accurate information. And when you’re using that
work to make important business decisions, it is imperative that you provide usable and accurate info.
The retailer will often hire out the collecting and compiling of data as well as the analysis and the
creation of a final report with recommendations. The final report can only be as good as the quality of
the data collected. The retailer could invest millions of dollars based on the information in that final
report.

Your business is no different: you collect and compile your own data; if you need the help, there are
qualified advisors available to help you decipher it and provide recommendations; you are then more
confident in future business decisions because you make the most informed choice available.

I am often asked for suggestions as to which data management platform to use. I liken it to exercise: you
can run, bike, jog, swim, whatever…as long as you’re exercising. Same with your farm data, there are
many platforms available; find the one that feels best for you…as long as you’re using it.

Direct Questions

Does your data management practice include data as precise as pounds of nutrient per acre by crop?
Are you retaining records of historical information to establish trend lines?
Are you recording your data at all, even if it is just a pencil and a ledger?

From the Home Quarter

There’s a lot of noise out there about “big data” and ownership/use of that data, and for good reason.
I’m not condoning the perceived risks relating to big data’s custody and/or use of your info, but in reality
we’ve been letting Google do it to us for a very long time already. Does that make it acceptable? No, of
course not. But do we let that be the excuse to not collect and manage our data? The actual harm done
to our business from not collecting data is greater than the risk of harm from potential illicit use of our
data. The cost of doing nothing in this case is far greater than the risk of doing the wrong thing.
I don’t care if you use a “big data” cloud based platform, or a spreadsheet on your Windows 95
computer. You owe it to yourself and to your business to make the most informed decisions possible.
The best decisions are made with good information. How good is your information?

If you’d like help planning your farm for business and personal success, then call me or send an email.

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Life and Business Can Sometimes Be Like Snowmobiling

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I love sledding. I don’t get out nearly enough, but I can say the same about playing ball or golfing in the summer. I’m no expert at snowmobiling, but I learn something new each time I ride, and I really enjoy riding with people who, like me, are still learning how to be better.

Let’s go back to the late 90’s when I was getting more serious about sledding. I had just purchased a late model 500EFI; I was reading the magazines and watching the TV programs. One TV episode I especially took to heart and it saved my bacon that season.

The instruction in that one segment of that one TV episode was how to manage a steep hillside. Considering I’m way too much of a prairie dog to have deep desires to ride the mountains, I could have used that time to get another snack, use the washroom, change the channel, or whatever. But I paid attention.

Later that winter, I was riding with one other person in an area neither of us was familiar with. We were in the ditch of a gravel road when we came to a wide old creek bed. The bottom was probably 30-40 feet deep with a four strand barbed-wire fence running right where the base of the slope met the bottom of the ditch. Couldn’t go down, we had to ride the shoulder of the road.

I’m sure you can all picture what seemed like a 60 or 70 degree pitch with at least a 30ft drop; it was imminent doom should we lose control and start barrel rolling down that slope. But I remembered the lesson from the TV program about how to manage steep hillsides: both feet on one runner, lean hard, and stay on the throttle! About half way across I had visions of dying in the bottom of that creek as I felt my machine start to pull downward, but I hit the throttle, the machine rose back up, and I made it across.

It is human nature to pull back or slow down when we get into a trouble spot. We inherently want to be cautious when we see something that we believe to be dangerous. But is what we are seeing actually dangerous? Not always, and less so if you know what you’re doing.

Direct Questions

Is it your practice to always “pull back?” Is it your practice to always “push forward?” What’s been your level of success with either?

When you’ve committed to a decision, are you able to “stay on the throttle” through to completion, or are you inclined to pull back?

How confident are you in “assessing the danger” objectively without letting emotion impede your decision?

From the Home Quarter

No one can deny that our best decision that day on our sleds would have been to turn around. But we pushed ourselves through the fear of failure and grew our confidence by several multiples because of our success. Sometimes in business, pulling back is exactly the wrong decision. It has been said that you “cannot shrink your way to greatness.” But either way, if you don’t understand the degree of danger or trouble you’re facing, you’re likely to make the wrong decision. Staying on the throttle does not guarantee success; this is not a rule. Sometimes we need to pull back. The trick is to know when to pull back, and when to “Just Give ‘Er!”