When we started putting together this edition of Progressive Dairyman, I initially thought along the lines of the physical expansion of the dairy industry. Many producers have expanded operation size over the last several years as many others look at similar moves today. For most, it is finding a way to remain in a business they have a passion for. For all of you, this issue speaks to those themes.

As the articles started coming together and the magazine took shape, I kept having an idea pop up in my head. It is a concept we have been facing at our business as well, considering we have grown four-fold over the past three years. In reality, our business has grown just as many other dairy operations have. And with it has come many of the same opportunities and challenges this type of growth brings.

For me, the greatest challenge in growth hasn’t been the acts of growth, nor the responsibilities that have come with the expanding list of duties growth can bring. What has been the most difficult thing to work through is the idea that others are going to have to take over what I once did to give me time to complete my new responsibilities.

I am, by nature, the kind of person that will do whatever it takes to get the job done (within legal and moral bounds). I have a hard time letting go of things I know I will get done a certain way, if I do them. I have a very low tolerance for mediocrity, and I feel those around me should have the same drive, fire and ambition I do toward things.

My friends in college used to call me “A-plus,” not because I felt that was where my grades should be, but because they thought my personality type was going to drive me to a heart attack by age 30. I have mellowed and matured over the years and, at 35, I am still ticking. However, I continue to have a hard time letting go of the familiar, the structure and the patterns my work responsibilities have been based on. This, unfortunately, is human nature.

No one easily lets go of anything they feel comfortable with and that can be one of the biggest blocks to true growth and expansion in any part of one’s life. It doesn’t matter whether the growth is physical or internal; nothing will really happen until we allow ourselves to stretch beyond the bounds that hold us, and our businesses, where they stand today.

I have visited with many dairy owners and managers that have experienced these same concerns, and it has been very interesting to see how they have reacted to the changes that have evolved within their operations.

Many have hit some rough patches as authority and ideas have had to be shifted and taken by others. For some, new facilities and cow numbers have forced new ideas and responsibilities to be shouldered by a new team of players. Quite honestly, those that have struggled the most have been those that have had the hardest time adapting to change.

With that said, I leave you with two of my favorite quotes by a person I have great admiration for, Albert Einstein. The first one is, “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The second reads, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

Yes, there is great possibility in making one’s dairy a bigger or better place, but with it comes the less desirable, yet ofttimes more important, growth of one’s self. But, in the long run, a person or a business cannot be complete without the other. PD

—Darren Olsen, Editor darren@progressivedairy.com