MANAGEMENT

In conversing with dairy managers, their usual complaint is their labour force. When these individuals are asked what motivates their employees to do a good job every day, the usual response is: “They will be fired if they don’t perform well.

That is motivation enough.” Their statements may be true, but is employee performance really improved with the threat of termination? Dairy employees already have the desire and capability to become top performers.

Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series on developing middle managers. Click here to read the first part of the series. Click here to read second part of the series.

With the right people on the Scandinavian warship and everyone busy rowing, it is time to see who rows the best, who needs more direction and who might need to find a seat on another ship.

Founders typically want to know where their income streams will be after they let go of power and control of management and/or ownership. They also have marital conflict about home residence issues and how to be fair to non-business heirs.

Back in 1993, NBA All-Star Charles Barkley found himself in the middle of a national debate because of what he said in a shoe commercial for Nike. It was a simple message, “I am not a role model.”

Not a stranger to controversy, Sir Charles defended his statement. Essentially, the point of his argument was that his job was to be good at playing basketball, while a parent’s job is to be a role model for their kids and raise them well.

For Canada’s agricultural producers, a profitable year of farming depends on successfully managing multiple, and often simultaneous, sources of risk such as weather, market prices and disease. Of all the risks faced by producers, the major one is price risk.

“Having a business strategy that includes managing price risk is essential,” says Gwen Paddock, RBC Royal Bank’s national manager, agriculture and agribusiness.

A farmer commented about how each year he is amazed how the seed plunked in the ground comes up in a beautiful carpet of green.

He recalled the day that his then-3-year-old son was digging in the dirt with his dad, and he “got it” that the seeds were sprouting to turn into a grain crop.