The Chicken or the Egg – In agriculture does knowledge or wealth lead the pack?

KASH – Knowledge, attitudes, skills, and habits.

 

Continuous learning is something that I believe agriculture takes for granted. My quarterly sessions at Strategic Coach are one of the few times I can shut off the outside world and truly focus on the growth of the many companies under the Hebert Group moniker. It also provides me with insights and concepts that I believe are foreign to primary producer agriculture. 

 

Much like the chicken or the egg, in agriculture does “Cash” come before “KASH”? 

 

If it were any other industry, I would be upfront and say that our education system is built on the concept that we gain knowledge before we ever enter the workforce. But, in primary producer agriculture, many go back to the farm well before they have the required experiences and information to truly run a successful business. 

 

The question today is: would farms be more profitable if we focused on education before legacy?

 

Knowledge

 

The old concept that everything you need to know can be taught through hard work and experience no longer holds water. Before farms became businesses, the ability to grow grain was the only thing that mattered and so Dad probably could do that better than any professor at any university in the world. 

 

But, we are no longer in those days. 

 

In a business where you wear more hats in one day than most do in a lifetime, can we rely on work through experience to pass knowledge?

 

All this being said, I also don’t believe that secondary schools have all the answers. We had this conversation on the last podcast and got more comments than we ever have on any other episode. We commented that we would send our children into business or commerce well before an agriculture degree for the current farm environment. As we intended, some believed we overstepped and that we were wrong and some wholeheartedly jumped on the bandwagon. In a business where deals are now in the millions and margins are tighter than ever before, should the next generation have a business degree or an agriculture degree? You tell me, as I am biased on this one (farmer with a professional accounting designation).

 

Attitudes

 

Did you know that when hiring employees, the skills necessary should most often be the least important factor? As an articling student attending recruitment functions all the time, we knew who the high achievers were in class because most of them sat in the corner at these functions too nervous to approach anybody. Back then the marks mattered more than the networking skills, so the firms often chose the strong silent type. Now I see the leaders in my old profession are those who can lead clients, not crunch numbers.

 

In agriculture, we often advertise for the skillset. The interesting part is that there is schooling and training that can create a skill. The ability to mold an attitude is a much harder task. 

 

When we hire, we look at the attitudes well before the skillset. Do they fit the culture? Do they have the same value system we have installed? Can they work with others to create synergies? All these factors outweigh how well they can drive a tractor or pull a wrench. 

 

This may be the largest discussion piece in the coaching programs we have. The ability to create a legacy statement, core values, and goal setting outweigh your ability to find skilled labour. Some of our strongest employees were trained by us, not by outside institutions. I can train a skill, but I cannot change a mindset quite as easily.

 

Skills

 

The age-old question in agriculture is, what skills make the biggest impact? I could not pull a wrench or fix something if you gave me the most detailed instructions. When I hang a picture in my house, I come away proud that I didn’t screw it up. But in my position that is not the skillset I was hired for. In farming, we often forget that there are numerous roles to be filled, and sitting in a cab is most likely the least important.

 

I have clients who believe they should be the only ones “farming”. They don’t trust that anyone else knows how to run the drill better, spray a crop better, or set a combine better. It is like a Facebook meme that I saw recently of a picture of Jerry Jones (the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) suited up in full gear with the line “I will do this shit myself”. I laughed because this embodies agriculture, we are our own worst enemy.

 

Habits

 

Why would a person’s habits matter to the organization? If you have ever watched the Michael Jordan documentary, you realize why habits matter. When you can set up your habits to be successful day in and day out, you will outperform others. The quote “hard work beats talent every time” rings in my head when I talk about habits.

 

In agriculture, I believe habits are the fact that we have resilience and work ethic. This is proven as I watched this harvest again drag on and everybody still showed up for work on time and ready to go. Nothing is more demoralizing than weather forcing a season to go twice as long as it is supposed to. 

 

Our habits make us want to show up, gett’er done, and go home. But our habits also allow us to be motivated to continue to show up when things are not that easy. Not as highlighted as the other aspects of KASH, habits can be a strong point for many employees on my list of importance.

 

Do we need to create “cash confidence” before we create “KASH confidence”? Can you even create wealth without the knowledge and skills to start? When asked in a room full of entrepreneurs the answer was easy, you need to have KASH. In fact, the line was “if you are not investing in KASH you are slowly liquidating your company”. 

 

So why, in agriculture, is continuous learning a foreign subject? Can we get an egg without the chicken?