Bringing Peak Performance Culture to Agriculture

Defining a clear business culture can boost the bottom line for family-run operations and large agribusinesses alike.

You’ve probably heard about culture before, but what is it, and why is it important? Well, says Dave Mitchell, founder of The Leadership Difference Inc., culture is important because every organization has one. The real question is whether that culture is intentional or accidental.

On episode 95 of the Mind Your Farm Business podcast, host Shaun Haney sat down with Mitchell to discuss his concept of peak performance culture and how it can positively impact the bottom line in both family-run farms and large agribusinesses.

What is culture, and why does it matter to agriculture?

“Culture is one of those buzzwords people love to throw around,” says Mitchell, but “when you sit down with executives…they often really struggle” to define it.  That’s because, as Mitchell explains, culture is more than just a business’s brand or tagline. It emerges from the “collective behaviours of everyone who works for you” in every aspect of your business. 

A former college baseball player who grew up in a small agricultural town in the Midwest, Mitchell acknowledges that, at first glance, culture may not seem relevant to farming. Though “even with a small family-owned farm,” states Mitchell, “you have attitudes, approaches, relationships with suppliers and vendors…as well as the people you sell your products to.”

The sum of these interactions impacts your reputation in the community, how you attract employees or, as host Shaun Haney suggests, a supplier’s willingness to show up late Saturday night when you run out of fuel and really need it to get through the harvest the next morning.

If you don’t define your culture, someone else will

The thing with culture, Mitchell explains emphatically, is that if you don’t define it, someone else will do it for you.

“If you are not intentional about who you want to be, some other descriptor will take that place,” he says, using the hypothetical and humorous example of the ‘Harris family’ known amongst peers as a difficult bunch to deal with. “Well, there’s your ideology in the marketplace,” laughs Mitchell, “that you’re a pain in the butt.”

He went on to explain—asking viewers to imagine a college football team—that the challenge in taking control of your culture is unifying so many different players, roles, and responsibilities around a single idea.

Establishing Peak Performance Culture

Drawing on three decades of experience shaping high-performing cultures across the globe, Mitchell created what he calls the five metrics of organizational excellence (described in detail in the podcast):

Where business owners often find themselves focused on the backend operations of the business, Wigger believes it is important to identify with the customer experience. “In customer service, we often find ourselves too product oriented,” he says. “Beyond specs and pricing, we also have to remember the customer’s time matters.” Accommodating busy lives while really listening to the customer’s priorities is FullMoon Autoworks’ recipe for success and repeat business.

• 1. Horizontal alignment

  2. Vertical alignment

  3. Customer experience

  4. Employee experience

  5. People preventative maintenance

Acknowledging the metrics sound a bit complex, in practice, Mitchell describes them as a “dashboard” for establishing and measuring peak performance culture.

They help farm businesses define their relevance to their marketplace and strategically consider how to integrate that into every aspect of their business to ensure the continuity of customer and employee experiences. This impacts everything from how you resonate with the marketplace to your business’s bottom line and long-term success as a business or organization. 

Listen to the full Mind Your Farm Business podcast episode here to learn more about the five metrics and how to implement them in your business.

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