New knowledge transfer paradigm: A whole brain at a time

Sometimes, we all need the help of a critical friend, to point out home truths and be our devil’s advocate. That is the intention of what follows here.

For any business or sector of business to remain vibrant, innovative and competitive, dead wood needs to be cleared and replaced with vigorous new growth. In the worlds of hairdressing or fast food take-aways, motor repairs or corner shops, this is a fairly simple matter: Those not good enough to be able to pay their bills go out of business; and the barriers to entry are low enough to allow ambitious start-ups to have a go in their place. One consequence of this is that knowledge transfer, and the improvement it creates, happens automatically and in the most effective way there is…a whole brain at a time.

The contrast in farming is illustrated on two facing pages of the 19^th November Farmers Guardian (FG) and couldn’t be more stark. On page six is the Princes Rural Action Programme to reduce the number of dairy farmers leaving the industry. Put this another way, it seeks to keep current farmers farming, regardless of whether this is deserved, by benchmarking costs through Dairyco’s Milkbench+ service and working with experts to reduce costs and improve performance. All very laudable too, until you see on the facing page a story from the NFU Tenants’ Conference where, according to FG, president Kendall said that for the industry to change with the times, ‘the best people’ were needed to meet the challenge of producing more and impacting less. By now, you will see the dead wood and new growth metaphor I hope?

Let’s face the fact that farming has become more or less a closed shop, with a sitting elite (tenants and owner-occupiers alike) being helped to preserve their occupancy at the expense of potential new entrants…except that some of those in situ are not very elite at all. Why else would the same issue of FG need to carry an article titled “Simple steps to reduce forage, straw and concentrate wastage” containing advice from the first year of a dairy OND course. Moreover, farmers who do want to improve performance can surely avail themselves of Milkbench+ and experts without the help of a ‘programme’.

In a similar vein, the industry has numerous knowledge transfer teams working diligently to push knowledge upon farmers, regardless of whether they want it or can see its merits. How much easier would it be for the industry to open up genuinely to survival of the fittest (actually, I think Darwin said it was adaptability that really mattered rather than fitness)? Then, as opportunities open up for new entrants to take the places of those no longer adaptable or fit enough to earn their own survival, knowledge transfer can take place automatically, a whole brain at a time. For those who might feel threatened by such competition for places in the industry, it could be a whole lot worse; just spare a thought for corner shop proprietors with a new Bestco Local opening for business in the next street. Now that would test anyone’s survival skills.

Who is the psychopath or mother superior in your workplace?

In the popular press recently, it’s been suggested that some psychopathic tendencies are helpful in becoming a successful entrepreneur and boss. This prompts some thoughts about other must-have leaders in the ideal management team, for example: Handyman (production), cheer leader (advertising and promotion), bean-counter (numbers and solvency), preacher (sales), mother superior (training and employee well-being) and visionary (business strategy).

With 20:20 hindsight, a business in which I was involved during the nineties and early noughties had most of these, but crucially not all. It did have some vision and direction, a brilliant numbers/solvency-protection wizard, reasonable sales and promotion, and a modicum of employee nurturing. What let it down was variable production efficiency.

For the most part, those involved in production were perfectly capable, well intentioned and committed. But what we lacked was an enforcer; an occasionally slightly psychopathic nutter of whom everyone, management team members included, was a bit scared; someone who didn’t need to be loved by their colleagues.

All successful enterprises need someone with authority who is willing to say, “That just isn’t good enough; please do something about it by tomorrow/next week/next month”…then check whether remedial work has been done and dispense praise or sanctions accordingly. Also for success, other managers need to emulate this example. For those to whom this doesn’t come naturally (most of us?), demonstrating good discipline and insisting on it from subordinates needs to be an explicit element of their job description and training. In contemporary society, it seems that the value of good discipline has slipped down the pecking order in favour of compassion, human rights, and freedom of choice. We mustn’t make this mistake in business.

As it turned out, the business in which I was involved remained solvent throughout, gave good client service fairly consistently, and provided employment for several dozen people over its 13 year existence before its orderly, all-taxes-and-debts-paid, closure. But it never ripped up the tarmac financially, and the component missing from this drag-racer was an enforcer of good discipline and good disciplines. While I don’t pretend the management team line-up above is complete or perfect, I hope you agree that all those roles are essential. To end on two of my favourite clichés*, ‘there are no bad soldiers, just bad generals’; and ‘the fish rots from the head’. [*cliché: a very short distance between two minds].