About This Episode
Chris Barron opens with a question Ag View asks every producer on the first visit and again a couple of years later: how do you define growth? Most answers start at more acres, more head or more profit, but the reason underneath is usually contribution to family, faith, industry and community, then security, then legacy. He walks through eight factors that turn that answer into a shared vision, beginning with why and moving to relationships, which comes down to transparency, clear expectations, and solving issues rather than only airing them.
Goals need to be strategic and measurable: where the balance sheet sits in three years and five years, who is still on the team, what the transition timeline is, and who holds whom accountable when someone shows up at ten in the morning. Focus and leadership means sticking to core competencies instead of stretching thin across enterprises, and writing down roles, responsibilities and decision rights so no partner learns about a new machine when it pulls into the yard.
Education means choosing your sources deliberately, protecting 15 to 30 minutes a day to sit and think, and networking at executive level events. Risk mitigation rests on four words, what could go wrong, plus real caution about who gets put into business together during transition. Barron spends serious time on physical and mental health, noting that farmers never let a tractor run past an oil change but skip their own maintenance. He closes on reflection and grading yourself on all eight.
“Defining growth is a process. It's not a pill.”
— Chris Barron
Key Takeaways
Growth has to be defined, not assumed; the reason underneath usually traces to contribution, then security, then legacy rather than acres alone.
Relationships hinge on transparency, clear expectations, and finishing the conversation by solving the issue instead of only discussing it.
Set measurable business goals, not just yield or efficiency goals: where the balance sheet stands in three and five years, and who is on the team.
Write down roles, responsibilities and decision rights so equipment purchases and other large calls never blindside a partner.
Risk mitigation starts with four words, what could go wrong, and includes an exit strategy before you put non active family members in business with active ones.
Grade yourself on all eight factors; Barron gave himself a C on several, including asking better questions and talking less.
Full Transcript
Chris: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and today we're going to have a conversation around defining growth. And before I do that though, I do want to just mention to everybody as a reminder with, with this podcast, it's really important to us to bring really good perspective, to bring value. And, and one of the things I would ask you if you do listen to this podcast a lot is please share this with with other producers. If you think you get value out of this and it's something that could help another producer or a friend that's in business, please share this, and especially this, this podcast, because I want to talk about one of the questions that we always ask our producers the first time we work with them, and it's something that we ask a couple of years down the road too, is the question of how do you define growth? And really, defining growth is a process.
It's not a pill, okay? So it's It's something that we evolve to as well. So what, how we define growth today might be different in 2 or 3 years. And so it's something that I think is important that we think about. And, you know, I did Google it. I looked up, you know, defining growth and it basically said, you know, the process of increasing in amount, value, or importance. And I thought that was pretty interesting that just right away what came up in the computer and it's, And it's why we ask that question. It's also to make sure that it leads toward a vision of where you want your business to go.
And even if you're the son, the daughter in the operation, or, you know, or the head person in the operation or the senior member, it's important that we all define what growth means to us and then that we have a conversation around what that growth means so that we all have a similar vision, we get on the same page. And so with that said, you know, I have 8 kind of key things that I kind of want to bring up as a question for us all to think about as we define what growth means and how that leads towards, you know, a sort of a common vision for all of us in the operation. And so I'm going to go through just the key words first, and if you want to take notes on this, I think it would be great. I mean, you pause this for a second, grab a piece of paper, grab a pen, and write down these 8 things. And so So go ahead and pause that if you want.
Otherwise, you can listen and come back to this later if you think it's something you want to go through. But the first thing is why, okay? Why is it important to define growth? Okay, that's number 1. Number 2 is relationships. Okay, it's about the people. And so that's number 2, is relationships. Number 3 is action items or goals, you know, so it's establishing, you know, kind of a direction of what you want to accomplish. Number 4 is focus and leadership, okay, and that's a little bit about team health. We'll get into that here in a bit. Number 5 is education, all right. Number 6 is risk management, or risk mitigation is probably a better way to, to say it. I like saying risk mitigation. And then the number 7 is health, okay, physical and mental, and we're going to touch on that for a minute too, just as some observations of things we see. And then the final one is reflection.
Okay, so we're going to spend just a few minutes kind of hitting on these as it relates to defining growth, which leads to a clear, concise vision, gets everybody on the same page, and you will get a ton of, you know, benefit from going through that. And as some of these things that we do with Team Health with farm operations is going through some of these things to sort of get everybody on the same page. And so let's go back to number 1, why. Okay, a lot of times we ask people, you know, here's what's your definition of growth? They'll tell us, you know, more acres, more head, more profit, or whatever. But if we really get down to the nuts and bolts of why that is their definition of growth is because, and this is a word that comes up often and not directly in the word, but the meaning is always there, and it's contribution.
And what I mean by that is, you know, as farmers, you know, what's important to us is society, family, the industry, you know, and faith, you know. So faith, farming, family, you know, all those things, and that's all part of it. And the other thing that that leads to though is security, almost number one, as we transition over from that. So You know, as we're contributing to society and to our family and to our faith and to the industry, we want security while we're doing it. Okay. And then what ultimately that leads to is the legacy of the business. And we see that a lot with a lot of the senior generations. We've been working with a lot of operations in transition, and it's just so important for that generation to, to be able to pass this down and carry the legacy on, whether it's a related party or not. It's very important.
And so, you know, in our industry, it's just, it's the why behind this. And so the next one is relationships, and that's really about communication. Big surprise, you know, like Shea always says, you know, he brings up the communication and says, "Surprise, you know, that's an issue in every single operation." And so when you deal with relationships, it's really about transparency. It's also about clear expectations. And discussions of issues. And a lot of times we don't sit down, we have the conversations around the issues, but we always tell people, you know, we don't a lot of times solve the issue. And so I'll talk a little bit more about that here in a second, but we have to make sure that in communication we're transparent, we have clear expectations, and we discuss issues and then solve them. So, okay, so now Number 3 action items, the goals, you know, be strategic.
A lot of times, you know, when we get to an operation, you know, they've got some specific goals, economic goals like yield goals or, you know, feed efficiency goals or things like that. And that's great, but you know, what are some of the longer-term business goals for your operation? You know, get those things clearly defined and make them measurable. Like where do you want to be? You know, where will this business be on the balance sheet in 3 years? Where will the balance sheet be in 5 years? You know, so looking at some of the bigger picture items on the business itself, you know, what will the, what will the team look like? You know, if we've got 2 or 3 people retiring out of the business, you know, or nobody to transition over to, or maybe we're in the midst of transition, what does that look like? What are the timelines?
You know, what are the, what are the expectations within those timelines? And then the most important thing on goal setting or action items is accountability, okay? Is, you know, what are we doing? Are we holding each other accountable? Somebody's transitioning in, but they show up at 10 o'clock in the, you know, in the morning. They're not on time. They're, you know, or maybe there's some things they're not doing the senior generation isn't happy with. Well, we have to hold each other accountability. Or conversely, it could be the other way. Maybe we're not— that maybe the training isn't the way where it should be, or maybe, you know, we're not getting all of the information that we should be getting and the goal is to transition, but we only have half the information and don't get to make all the decisions, but maybe we're responsible for all the results.
So, you know, it's a real important thing, you know, back to that communication on number 2. So number 4 is, you know, I said that one is the focus and leadership, team health. So we spend a lot of time with various operations once we get some of the financials figured out, we understand the dynamics, we start understanding what's going on in business and with the family, the dynamics, communication issues, all those things, is creating a focus in a leadership direction. So it's, you know, sticking to your core competencies. And what I mean by that is a lot of times we look at diversity as a good thing, and it is. So, you know, maybe you've got a crop operation and you're custom feeding hogs, or you've got a dairy and you're doing most of the crop work yourselves, but maybe you're stretched a little too thin in certain areas of the business, is looking at what are we really good at.
And if we're not good at some of that stuff, maybe we need to hire somebody to do that other stuff and we do what we do really well. And so those are some of the issues we observe a lot. And so it's just, again, this is about perspective and asking you to think about this, you know, are any of these things hitting home, and these are maybe some of the things that we have issues with, you know, identifying clear roles and responsibilities, you know, who's responsible for what, you know, and having some clearly defined decision rights, you know. So if, you know, the operations manager or one of the people in the operation is going to go get parts and things, you know, what decisions do they have?
Or if you have, you know, 3 family members all farming together and it's time to replace some large piece of equipment, how do you, how do you narrow that down so that everybody ends up being on the same page and you don't have one family member pissed at the other one because they didn't, you know, they didn't feel like they were heard? Or maybe even worse, sometimes we hear, well, I didn't even know we were going to do that. All of a sudden, you know, this, you know, VT machine pulls in the yard and I was like, well, I guess we're getting a VT machine, you know. So It's making sure that we, we talk through these things and, and we identify roles, responsibilities, and those decision rights are critical. And so education is the next one. Number 5, networking with the right people.
Nothing against the coffee shop, it's entertaining, I guess, and a lot of times Twitter, and I'm not, you know, downplaying Twitter, it's fine and there's information there and things, but just be careful of who you listen to, you know, and, and where your information is coming from. No matter what it is, I don't care if it's me, you know, if it's, if it's things that you need to access, you need to be aware of your own business, your own needs, and say, where do I need to go to get the best information for whatever it is I'm trying to figure out? And, you know, and just stay focused on the business stuff. And sometimes education— and this is going to sound weird— but is just sitting in your office and doing some thinking.
You know, like 15 minutes a day or, or half an hour a day, first thing in the day or at the end of the day, whenever it works for you because it's different for everybody. But just sit down and think because we don't have enough time a lot of times as producers on the leadership side, especially of trying to figure out, okay, what's going on? I mean, it's hard enough to figure out what we're going to do the next day and how to keep everybody moving and keep everything going. But sitting down and having that quiet time to where you can kind of think about things a little bit was well worth it, and that's part of your education, you know. And then just, you know, going to some of these conferences, you know, I'm a huge fan— I know a lot of you know this— of TPAP. It's an executive level course.
We're looking at probably having an executive level conference for the first time ever in 2022 in January. So those types of conferences where you can go and you can surround yourselves with like-minded people and just have that networking experience is really huge, I think, in the education part. Number 6, risk mitigation. That's a huge one too. A lot of times, you know, we're working with operations that are restructuring their business or they're transitioning their business or they're setting up another LLC or another company or whatever, and it's really about having an exit strategy. We also see this with, you know, families that have actively engaged family members and family members that are not actively engaged, don't know what's going on sometimes. And it's important that, that we have strategies to get ourselves or to unwind a situation that we put ourselves in.
Or if you're a senior partner or a parent and you're transitioning the farm over to active members, be really careful about who you put in business together. It might not make sense for, you know, 2 or 3 family members that aren't actively engaged to be put in business with one person who is, one of the kids who is. And so there's things to really think about because sometimes there's unintended consequences in what we think looks like a good deal. And so vetting, you know, vetting these things out and making sure that we have a good resource team, you know, whether it's the attorney or just somebody that you can think out loud with and talk about what if What if this happens or what if that happens?
I always tell my kids, you know, since they were little, you know, you go running across the yard as fast as you can and you got shorts on and you're on gravel, you know, what could go wrong? You know, so the proverbial question you want to think of in risk mitigation is always having really those, those four words in front of you, what could go wrong? And I think that's real important for the risk mitigation. Number 7, On health, I think that's a big one too because, you know, physical and mental health is some— something that we see taking a toll on some people. And a lot of it is because I think sometimes we take too much on to start with. I think from the mental side, we, we want to have control of things, and so we, we won't cross-train sometimes, or we won't let somebody else have the steering wheel of whatever part of the business or part of the operation we're doing.
And so we, we maintain control too long, and then 2 or 3 other things get put on our plate, and then we're overloaded, but we just keep going and we just keep digging at it. And I think that's something that starts to wear on people. It starts to build stress, and it just makes us not as good to communicate with. And it, and it, it wears on us not only mentally then, but then it wears on us physically. And the other thing that, that we see a lot too, and, and, you know, I'm, I'm guilty of this myself, but I'm going to say this anyway, but, you know, we need to do a better job as producers, as farmers in general, as a culture, taking care of ourselves. I mean, exercise, you know, getting better, you know, getting more sleep and paying more attention to nutrition.
I mean, those are all things that we have control of, you know, and the, the funny thing is, is almost all of us, I mean, we don't let our tractors go past the, the oil change hour amount or we'd go crazy because, you know, hey, we're 5 hours over the oil change, we got to get that thing in here and get the oil changed. But then, you know, we'll sit around that morning eating donuts right after we're done changing the oil on the tractor that we would never let anything go in that engine that isn't absolutely what's supposed to be in there. And, and we have a physical engine, our bodies, that we're doing all this stuff and we do all these things for our whole life and, you know, and get to the end. You know, we want to be here to enjoy this. All of us do. Myself. And it doesn't mean I don't eat donuts. I'll have— I'll— I'm the first one to probably grab the donuts out of there.
But, you know, it's, it's, you know, are we exercising? Are we, you know, just taking care of ourselves and watching those things? And so I, I don't want to harp on that one, but it's one that scares me a little bit when I see a lot of a lot of producers and, and just how successful they've become financially and how that's taken a toll on them physically and mentally to get to that successful point. And then what did you do it all for? You know, you did it for your family, but you also need to be able to recognize that you should have some time to celebrate that success as well. And, and it's just important to us, for, for Shea and I and Alyssa, for, for all of us to take care of ourselves. And so that's kind of a big one for me personally too. The The last one is reflection. This one is just being self-aware.
We just came off a peer group meeting about a week ago, and it was interesting, you know, we were all talking about the importance of just kind of being aware of who we are, how we act, things we say, you know, and I'm guilty of that, you know, there's things sometimes that I say or I talk too much, you know, I don't, I'm not as good a question asker as I should be, and so it's just It's just looking, it's just self-reflection, is looking back at yourself and saying, okay, being vulnerable and saying, okay, I don't do this very well, I don't do this other thing very well. And like I just said, you know, I talk too much and I don't ask questions as good as I should. And there's just a lot of things that I know that I need to improve on. And so, you know, what are those things for you?
You know, again, if you've got these all things written down, what things do you need to improve on or could you do a better job of?, you know, and maybe it's releasing some control, you know. So again, it's just whatever those things are for you. And then just recognizing that it's okay that if you've been successful, and I'm speaking to a lot of the older producers here that listen to this, a lot of farmers that have either been in Dad's Wisdom with us or those who haven't been willing to but are, you know, been very successful throughout their whole career of farming. It's okay to be successful. It's all right. You've done it. You've done a great job, and to celebrate that once in a while is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
And I— and the other thing I would say on the self-reflection as it relates to a lot of the younger people, and if you're starting to take over for a senior partner, a lot of times what sometimes we see communication issues and things, and a lot of times it's just some gratitude back to the senior partner of, you know, hey, thank you for this opportunity, or thank you for the things that you do to provide and to help me get my feet underneath me and help me put this foundation together and to continue the legacy of this business. Thank you. Goes a long ways. And a lot of times we don't— we, we just, we put our heads down and we go to work, and sometimes we need to lift our head up, be a little reflective and, and communicate with each other a little better than we do. So that's really all I have. I do want to go through those again.
You know, number 1 is why, um, why, why is, you know, defining growth such an important thing, um, you know, for you? And what does it mean to you? And why is it— why is that your definition? You know, why is it— is it legacy? Is it security? Is it— is it more growth? Of profitability. You know, I had a farm operator tell me the other day that it was, you know, as it was about right-sizing, you know, they felt like they had had so much growth that they needed to maybe even back off a little bit and right-size their business. And that, that was actually growth, you know, maybe, maybe stepping back a little bit. And so anyway, back to what I was supposed to be doing here. Why is number 1. Number 2 is relationships. Number 3 is action items and establishing really good level goals. Number 4, being focused on leadership and team health.
Number 5 is education and staying focused on, on learning all the time, no matter how old you are. Risk mitigation, just, you know, watch that, those things that can go wrong, you know, what could go wrong, those 4 words. Health, physical and mental, take care of yourself. And, and, or the question is, are you taking care of yourself? And then reflection, is the last one. And so the only other thing I would say here is, if you did write these things down, last thing I'm going to mention is grade yourself on each one of those. It's always interesting. I went through that exercise myself, and I found there's a few areas I knew that I probably need to continue working on, and I gave myself a C on a couple of these. And so, you know, if you might have an A on some of these, you might have a C, maybe you have a D.
Or maybe you failed on some areas, and so, you know, at least that makes— gives you some self-reflection so that you can try to improve those things. Whether, again, I don't care if you're, you know, the main person in the operation that calls all the shots and you're the head honcho, or if you're the, you know, the guy that's, you know, power washing the buildings and you're listening to this and wanting to get a little bit more involved in the operation. So hope this was helpful. Again, please share this with, you know, with anybody if you think it was useful. If you don't, then don't share it. I guess. But, you know, again, with the Ag View Pitch, what we really want to do is just bring, bring some value and have you guys all think through some of the things that, that maybe we could all do as we work on the business occasionally.
Because we spend so much time working in the business, we got to step back and reflect and look at things that we can do to make the business better. So with that, that's all I got for today. I hope this was helpful and useful, and we We'll catch you again next time on the iView Pitch.