Create a clear vision: Define what you do and why you do it

As a management speaker and business coach for the past 20 years, Cooper led attendees of the 2016 PDO Triennial Dairy Symposium in Toronto, Ontario, through a “reality check” to inspire them to look at their farm businesses differently.

Karen Lee

Managing Editor / Progressive Dairy

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The Canadian dairy industry is facing a number of challenges, from market issues and long-term sustainability to environmental concerns and succession planning. Given those and other challenges, Cooper asked the group, “Why do you dairy farm?”

Some answers he has heard before include: It’s the lifestyle. It’s a great place to raise a family. There is an excellent and consistent financial return. It’s the best use of our land and our cattle.

The challenge of the long hours. The industry has a bright future. I don’t want to let my parents or my siblings down. It’s all I know.

“I don’t really care why you do what you do,” Cooper said. “I just want you to be aware of why you do what you do and how you do it and where you do it.”

Typically, the answers to these questions have more to do with history than current realities or future possibilities, which can mask whether or not a business is sustainable in present times.

How are decisions made on the farm? Are they driven by math, the heart, tradition, or is there a clear vision outlined to guide the decision-making process?

Are you in it for fun or for money?

“You can be anywhere you want, but just understand where and why,” Cooper said.

In doing so, you will be able to rethink your future and do things better – or perhaps do different things when it is appropriate.

He said a leader’s first job in any business is to provide clarity. They must be clear about the business’s commitments: The customer value it will deliver, the vision of the business, the business model, the bottom line it will generate and how you will behave along the way.

“They are commitments,” Cooper said. “They are not goals, targets, aims or objectives. ... The words goals, targets, aims and objectives are weak and wishy-washy words that leave way too much wiggle room to not perform. There’s a huge difference between a goal and a commitment.”

By changing your language, you can change your culture. It will change how you think about things.

Use powerful words to give a clear purpose to your business that is transformational for those who embrace it.

Your vision should outline your commitment and purpose to customers, investors, employees, the community, the environment and the cows. It is what you commit to become, Cooper said.

There are two kinds of vision statements. First, there is the aspirational vision statement. This is an airy, general statement about what you commit to create to be a better company and a better human being.

Then there is what Cooper called the operational vision statement – “a clear, specific and measurable statement of what you commit to become to be a more profitable and responsible market leader in three to five years. It will inform, focus, challenge and inspire you and everybody on the team from top to bottom.”

Some people struggle in outlining a vision because they don’t know what the future will bring.

According to Cooper, there are two kinds of future: the one with all of the stuff that will happen in the world that is out of your control, and the other, which is the future you can commit to proactively create in spite of the uncontrollable stuff in the first future.

“The best way to thrive in a certain future is to create the future,” he said. “The future is not a guessing game; it is a committing game. It’s a simple but powerful shift in thinking.”

Be specific about what you will do. Attach numbers and due dates to your commitments.

“What will the Canadian dairy industry look like in 10 years?” he asked. “Will you be a creator of that extraordinary future or will you be a victim of it?”

According to Cooper, failure to execute is one of the biggest problems in every business in every industry around the world today. “Businesses don’t die from a single shot to the head,” he said. “They die slowly but surely from a thousand uncompleted tasks. Do not let it happen to your business.”

Make a plan for profit. Calculate the after-tax profit you need to live the life you want now and deliver a competitive return on investment. Then create a business plan to make that happen.

“If you can’t figure out the business plan that makes it happen, you need to change your business model or you need to change your life,” Cooper said.

Think of your business as an investment. Don’t describe it based on what you’re selling; instead, use investor thinking. An example from Cooper is, “We’re a family investment company with 95 percent of our money currently invested in a dairy farm in southern Ontario.”

He said, “When you state it that way, you start asking some really important questions. Is this the best industry, the best region, the best size in which to have this much of our capital invested? What are our options? What are the prudent investment decisions we should be at least considering?”

Don’t have an emotional attachment to your business model because it may be unprofitable or unsustainable, but do make sure it fits your life model. For example, a restaurant owner developed a business plan to only be open for breakfast and lunch so she could be home with her children in the evening.

To create a clear company vision and profitable business plan, undergo a “reality check” and question your business model, look at alternatives and make sound business and profit decisions.