To Be Exceptional: Be the Exception – Why the gap in agriculture is widening

I was listening to an Alex Hormozi podcast the other day, and this quote struck me as profound. In agriculture, we all too often throw all the farms into one pot and wonder why certain ones become more successful. Then, as we always do, we attribute it to wealth, or dirt, or luck. I am here to say “bullshit”, to be an exceptional agriculture producer, you need to become the exception.

In my career, I have been lucky enough to work beside some of the strongest entrepreneurs in our field, not just in scale, but in thought leadership. Not all primary producers are built the same. That is not to say that some are better, and some are worse. I have seen strong farms come from producers that, quite honestly, are production and not business. One of HGV’s closest peer group members did not track how many hours any of his guys worked in a year, as they were all on a salary. In the end, he had stronger retention, higher profitability, and a dedicated human resource strategy. But this is the exception, not the rule.

I thought I would take a minute to list off the attributes of the most progressive growers and why I believe that this is the reason for the widening of the gap between good and great.

People Management

Whether you are a family-run operation or have a staff that requires constant supervision and management, human capital is always the largest differentiating factor. This does not mean how loud you can yell and how many hours you can push your people; this is your leadership style and how you choose to inspire and motivate.

The funny part is that leadership is not one size fits all. I have been around inspirational leaders like my business partner, and that, to be honest, I would run through a wall because I believe there is gold on the other side. I have also been around leaders who quietly pushed me from the back, and you didn’t even know they were there. Those leaders may be the unicorns in agriculture; they don’t want recognition, they honestly can not be identified in a lineup, and yet they have some of the strongest teams I have seen.

Family farms are a strong example of people management. Those who work well rely on family members having distinct roles, a strong form of communication style, understanding what they are accountable for, and believing in the full picture of the future. They are compensated appropriately, they are involved in decision-making, and they rely on continuous education to constantly improve. The family farms that fail fight over who’s in charge, have zero communication channels up or down, and compensation may be called “sweat equity” because you will get it all in the end. See the difference; it matters.

Lastly, for those who have not heard the “Netflix Memorandum”, I urge you to Google it. The fact is, you will always hear large corporations motivate by saying “we are a family”. To me, it is the kiss of death. Families have unconditional love, and when times get tough in an organization, this is rarely true, and this is where feelings get involved. We choose to focus on the “dream team” phenomenon. You all have a role to play (ask Gretzky if Semenko or McSorely helped his career), we only win if everybody works together for success, and in the end, you may not be on the team when the final buzzer sounds. I urge operations to focus more on this type of foundation, even if all the members of your farm have your last name.

Process Matters

What if I told you that 99% of errors are not caused by people but by the process? Don’t get me wrong, we always attack the people first, as this is the low-hanging fruit. But in most instances, on farms or in other industries a process breakdown causes the fire.

Take communication, for example. The “rule of 7” states that it takes seven exposures to a message for comprehension and action. This is the number of times it takes for information to move from short-term to long-term memory. Have you ever told your kid to clean up their room, and it doesn’t happen – welcome to the process issue. What about an employee? This is why in communication, you need multiple ways to involve family and/or employees, and you need multiple delivery methods (text, visual, direct). Remember that next time an employee does something wrong, how many times did you say the order?

The other interesting item is that in primary producer operations, most of our process is held in one spot, the owner’s frontal cortex. Most farms are bad at writing things down, and they are good at blaming people for not knowing what they were thinking. I see this with goal setting throughout our organization; the stats are not wrong when they say setting goals is important, but writing them down is critical to success.

We all hate writing strategic operating procedures (SOPs). Most farmers have probably never heard the terminology up to this point. The progressive and forward-moving operations already have them in place. Whether that is Q-codes in the machinery, YouTube videos for setting technology or completing a manual task, checklists for service or onboarding of new employees. You want the largest gap between the top 5% and the rest; it is process-driven.

Continuous Education

What if I told you that the top 5% read more books and attend more education and lectures than the rest of the operations combined? Now that is a stat that I pulled out of nowhere, but in my opinion, the top producers I work with or have had the privilege of learning from have one large thing in common – they are never satisfied. 

When I started with HGV, my favourite tag line was “if it’s not broke, you haven’t looked hard enough”. This then turned into “somebody, somewhere else in the world is kicking your ass”. All these sayings have one thing in common: continuous learning and the goal of always moving forward are not ingrained in humans; it is an exceptional trait. 

How you choose to educate yourself is another discussion. My business partner reads more books than I thought possible in a year, and I listen to and live by podcasts. In today’s age, with the fact that we have access to so much information, there is no excuse for those who choose to be complacent. Sitting in a combine is a perfect time for learning, on your couch watching sports highlights, open a book, and lastly scrolling TikTok on the toilet, go to Audible. I say this in jest, but the moral is always the same: good to great is only a motivational paragraph away.

A large percentage of the industry will dismiss this blog and tell me the top producers have luck (or grandpa’s wallet). They are not entirely wrong in many circumstances, but when times get tough, we will start to see the wallet tighten or run out of bills. Only those producers who continually push the status quo, believe that they can be better, and understand that others around them may know more than they will truly make the next leap forward. The gap in agriculture is widening into the Grand Canyon. I would argue you might want to get away from the ledge before it crumbles.