YC.com: Making Changes

You are driving home from a great seminar where you exchanged ideas with other feedlot owners and managers, and your thoughts are racing. Your new plans are formulating rapidly and innovative ideas are galloping through your head. Then reality sets in - how are you going to get the employees to do it?

This is the dilemma that a Kansas client challenged me with after he returned from a recent production seminar. He had been in this situation before and felt that his employees would just blow him off. He had come back from seminars before with new ideas of how to solve one of the operation's problems, but the employees wouldn't buy in.

The management "Guru's" would have us believe that adapting to change can be performed in a predictable, step-by-step manner. This is partly true, but there are some practical issues that must be dealt with before our employees will enthusiastically join our effort to improve productivity. Here are some simple considerations in dealing with these issues:

Avoid "Post Seminar Syndrome." This happens when the owner or manager returns from a seminar and has great ideas, but no other staff members were there to hear the same information. The "boss" is the only one that is enthusiastic and motivated to make immediate changes, and the staff just appeases them. To prevent this backlash and disinterest, approach the changes one at a time. Don't make any announcements about how "things are going to change around here," or "I've got this thing all figured out." These types of statements focus the attention on the individual making the changes rather than the specific changes that need to be made. Some of the staff will resist those changes and may even create an atmosphere where the changes will never succeed. Take "baby steps" as you modify your procedures and keep focused on the key factors that affect each of the areas where you need to make improvements.

Don't try to eat the elephant in one bite. Major progress comes through a series of minor victories and small setbacks. Adapt as you go. If you try to make too many changes all at once your staff will be frustrated and the minor setbacks will seem like major defeats.
Have a master plan. Know what you need to accomplish and when you need to achieve your objectives. Be certain that you have the essential elements for reaching your goals. You can't make major improvements in vet and medicine costs if you buy cattle from a source with poor health. Be willing to make some major changes for the long-term benefit of the operation.

Know your key production factors. It's easy to become the fireman and always be "putting out" production problems. The best way to keep your staff focused on the main issues is to continually focus on them yourself. Help the staff understand how all the different specific duties and procedures affect the big pictures. Have specific production targets for each area of the operation and keep your staff focused on those numbers.

In the last six years, the only way that we have had success in getting employees to stay focused is to explain the production goals, and then evaluate their personal performance on how well they do the specific parts of their job that affect each of those goals. This includes daily habits, their ability to do each procedure flawlessly, and their observation skills.

Track your results. Have graphs, charts or even simple spreadsheets that reveal weekly and monthly progress in each production area. Most employees understand graphs better than spreadsheets, and graphs make it easier to spot trends. Identify the acceptable range of performance and praise employees when they exceed expectations. When they fail to achieve expectations, talk about the expected production level, the facts that affect that particular production target, and how their duties affect that specific goal. Take measurable steps to address each issue that arises without micromanaging. Take advantage of "teachable moments."

Keep improvement in perspective. If your production is poor and significant improvement is needed, you may need to make bold, significant changes. If you already have good production and are trying to make methodical, progressive improvements realize that it takes time and concentration on the details. The last few percentage points of improvement are always the hardest to achieve, and also the hardest to maintain.

Our employees tend to resist change because they prefer their job to be as simple and predictable as possible. If we can help them get accustomed to progressive, methodical changes, in addition to focusing on the main goals of the operation, they will go through changes without even knowing they have improved. ©

Don Tyler, Tyler & Associates, Clarks Hill, Indiana, managed grain and livestock operations for over 16 years, and now helps resolve personnel management issues with a wide variety of agricultural clients across the country. He recently published a complete manual for managing ag employees. He can be reached at 765-523-3259 or through his web site at www.dontyler.com.