Professional Dairy Producers (PDP) Executive Director Shelly Mayer set the tone for an engaging three days when she stated, “You can’t have a winning team with a losing mindset.”
The sentiment was reinforced again and again as top dairy executives and farm business owners participated in the PDP Managers Academy Jan. 7-9 in Dallas, Texas. This year’s training centered around unlocking the power of people for one’s self, one’s team and one’s business. It was a training poised to further develop industry leaders and create cultures in which all in the workplace can thrive.
“The secret sauce is people,” Michael Hoffman said. “You have been a doer and now you’re leading. This is the time to develop your team, your relationship with your co-workers and your farm’s culture.”
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Michael Hoffman speaks with conference attendees at the Professional Dairy Producers Managers Academy Jan. 7-9 in Dallas, Texas. Image courtesy of Professional Dairy Producers.
Hoffman, president of Igniting Performance based in Dallas, was one of two featured professionals at the training. He was joined alongside Dr. Richard Kyte, the endowed professor of ethics at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute of Ethics in Leadership.
Together, the two spent the first day challenging attendees to critique their workplace culture and find opportunities for improvement, whether that be building camaraderie among farmworkers with monthly social gatherings, praising individuals for exceptional performance or recreating energy from an organization’s founding principles to create buy-in from new employees; the latter was particularly relevant in the industry as current farm operators work with the next generation.
Examples of effective company culture were displayed in the stories of Kwik Trip as well as Southwest Airlines’ early years.
The overarching message: In order to cultivate your farm’s culture, one must hire people who have the desire, allow them to be empowered and have a leadership team that is also empowered.
“As servant leaders, you’re naturally looking for solutions to a problem,” Kyte said. “But maybe, the most important thing you can do is listen. Be aware and adjust to fit the personalities of the team.”
The first day of conversation allowed the participants to develop a hypothetical merger of two dairy farms and present how the culture could be maintained or improved upon when two businesses become one.
The following day, attendees were tasked with learning about three company cultures and leadership, then reconvening on the final day of the event to evaluate. The group had an expansive tour of the Trinity River Authority – a water treatment facility – interacted organically with employees at a nearby Buc-cee’s gas station to gauge company culture and capped the evening off with dinner and a show at Cosm Dallas where building a cohesive team was the highlight of discussion.
As the Managers Academy wrapped up, attendees delved further into the concept of company culture by discussing feedback and reflecting on a person’s character.
Kyte shared that a mere 34% of employees are engaged at work; 53% are disengaged.
“What do you have to take care of to get them not unhappy? What do you have to do to have exceptional employees?” Kyte questioned.
The answers lie in a leader’s virtues and values – what they believe and know in their minds, and what their actions reveal. When people are exposed to good virtues, first they imitate those actions, then it becomes a habit, and then it will become a character trait of that individual, Hoffman said.
Attendees of this year’s Managers Academy left with the tools needed to improve workplace culture, considering the business’s history, where it wants to go and engaging employees all along the way.
Next year’s event will take place Jan. 20-22 in Puerto Rico.