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The People Spark® Podcast is where ag leaders and business owners come for practical tools, real stories, and straightforward strategies to grow stronger people leaders, teams, and businesses.
Hosts Kristen Ireland and Erin Mies, HR and leadership consultants with over 35 years of combined experience, share insights from the field and conversations with leaders who have been where you are. From navigating change and improving retention to building culture and leading with confidence, every episode delivers simple, actionable takeaways you can put into practice right away.
Whether you’re leading a family business, co-op, managing a dealership, or running an ag-adjacent business, this podcast will help you stop spinning in circles and move forward with clarity, confidence, and results.
[01:00:00:00 - 01:00:10:04]
(Music Playing)
[01:00:10:04 - 01:00:28:13]
Hi, I'm Erin Meese. And I'm Kristin Ireland. And this is our podcast, The People Spark. Helping Ag Leaders Get Out of the Weeds and Lead with Clarity and Confidence.
[01:00:29:21 - 01:00:49:08]
So one of the things, we've had two discussions leading up to this point. First of all, Erin, why do we want to, why did we decide to do a podcast? Well one of our favorite things to do is to be kind of teaching a workshop or be on stage where we can help to speak on a different topic that's impacting ag leaders.
[01:00:50:12 - 01:01:31:21]
And knowing that those things happen kind of sporadically throughout the year. And in many cases, like you can't go to all of them. This is a better way for us to try to be able to reach ag leaders and do some of the things that we do. Like teach, like help instruct and help share information and knowledge in a way that could be consumed and people can use it right away at any point. It's right at their fingertips. And let's be honest, I think we've both joked about wanting to have a podcast for about five years. This has been on Kristin's bucket list for a long time. It is on my bucket list. So I'm super excited about it too. Yes. And for all of the reasons that you listed. Absolutely.
[01:01:32:21 - 01:01:39:13]
We get a lot of, you know, I think we started hearing this early on one of our first speaking engagements, January of 2019.
[01:01:40:15 - 01:01:56:03]
We got up and started talking and some of the people in the group were a little bit hesitant because they knew we had an HR background. I think we were actually termed by one of the participants. Oh, you're the HR people. The HR people. And when we got done, he said that was different than I expected.
[01:01:57:23 - 01:02:14:00]
And that is, I think one of the powerful aspects of sitting down and having a conversation. Once we talk through it and we get through some basic information, how it applies, it's much more relatable.
[01:02:16:02 - 01:02:30:13]
So I feel like this is a way that we can bring that to life. Well, and one of my favorite things, so that's a blast from the past. So one of my favorite things about that particular speaking engagement, because that was our very first one after we had started the business, left perfectly good full-time jobs with benefits.
[01:02:32:17 - 01:05:34:20]
We get there and so this particular group was a group of ag business owners, peer group. And so it was not a big speaking engagement, not a big thing on stage. And we were given the instruction that, hey, prepare content for like 30 to 45 minutes and we'll go as long as people have questions. And we said, okay. So we prepared that. And at about the two and a half hour mark, we were asking the facilitator, are you sure? Like, do you want us to keep going? And he's like, they've got questions. Go ahead and keep going. And so I think it was about three hours in total that we just took questions from people. And so I think that was the very beginning of, wow, there's a lot of either there's a lot of leaders out here who have questions, who need information and who don't always have have somebody right at their fingertips to be able to ask these questions of. So I think of that with a lot of just fondness of, okay, there's a good that we can do here. Yes. Yes. A lot of need, a lot of discussion, a lot of misconceptions. For sure. Along the way too of, I feel like I need to do this or I feel like I need to do that. I need to have this thing. I need to have this process. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So we were able to spend a lot more time of where is it that you want to go and why? Right. So that we could talk about what would be the best thing. Yeah. If you're a 50 person business, what are the things that are certainly that you need from a compliance perspective, but you don't need it necessarily the same big processes that a 300 person or a 3000 person or a 30,000 person organization is going to need. We need to understand first what, what you're wanting to do in your business and then help get a, get us either a strategy or a process in place. It's going to support you to do that. Right. Well, and one of the other things that we have made a theme of when we do speaking engagements and you do this so well is making sure that there's always one thing. Yeah. What's the, what's the one thing? What's the one thing that, that somebody could do? So why is that so important to you when we have speaking engagements? Why is that so important to you that we have that one thing? Well, I think it's important for somebody to be able to leave it, leave an event, whether it's a presentation, whether it's a workshop and feel confident that they can do something with that information. Like there is, there's a lot of presentations, a lot of things that we've been to over the years. And I've been on the receiving end of where you leave and you feel really good. And then you're like, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that. How am I supposed to apply that here? So for us, I think a big mission of ours has been, how can we help break this down for somebody so that they can either put it into practice while we're in the room together or have a plan so that they've got talking points immediately when they get back to their business, to their location and try something out and start seeing the confidence that they can build as a result of it.
[01:05:35:22 - 01:06:06:01]
So when we do the podcast where we have discussion and that could include us and other special guest appearances by other industry leaders. Fabulous guests. Fabulous guests. With the goal, okay, this was really great. What is one thing that you could do? Yes. One thing that you could say, one question that you could ask, one piece of information that you could get. Right. To go forward. Well, I think that's, I mean, even when we wrote the book, that was still, that was something that was important to us too, was, hey, even if,
[01:06:07:10 - 01:06:18:20]
if somebody were to read the book, are there things that they can practically, that they can try in all practicality in their own business and give it a shot and see what they can do as a result of it. So that's
[01:06:18:20 - 01:06:37:16]
So one of the other things that we spent a lot of time talking about since the podcast has been a dream of ours. Yes. Especially Kristen, especially me. Let's be real, I really want the microphone and the headset.
[01:06:39:15 - 01:06:54:13]
Is, so we named it the People Spark. Uh-huh. To me, the most important part is then the tagline of helping egg leaders get out of the weeds with clarity and confidence. So Kristen, what does that mean to you? I was going to ask you no question. You already asked me plenty of questions.
[01:06:56:19 - 01:07:01:12]
There are, there are so, I know. And you know, I get excited about it anyway.
[01:07:03:06 - 01:09:31:22]
To me, that resonated for so many reasons. One is especially working in the egg industry. So many people are, they, they feel one, passionate about the industry and are determined to work hard. Figure things out. And we end up getting into the weeds where we, we spend time in the, and I say we, meaning egg leaders in general. And we spend time in the day to day because we're passionate about the industry. We're passionate about our customers or our members. We're passionate about the work to be done. And, and we get into some of that day to day. And, and I think at some points leaders step back and go, oh, wait a minute. What, what do I need to do? Either this isn't sustainable. I can't continue to be at this level or work at this, this level, or I, I see the growth. I see the opportunity and I'm so far in some of the day to day that I, that I don't have time to, to kind of look out over into the future and, and plan for that. Um, and sometimes it's just uncomfortable because we really good at the day to day and implementing the operations and. And serving our customers were really good at that. And this kind of expands a skillset that not everybody is really comfortable with. So to me that how do you do that with confidence and clarity was really important. Right. What about you, Erin? Well, I think it's, it's stuff that we've even worked through as business owners too, over the years of you get really good at working in the business and around to your point around what needs to be done. And you're really good at it. That's what has built your business to this point, that there's not a lot of opportunities to work on the business. And so that's our goal in this too, of giving you some of those things to help you kind of zoom out a little bit and look at what needs to happen across the entire business. So, you know, if you're growing the number of locations, if you're expanding the number of employees, you know, there's all, all kinds of different things that we've seen or even looking potentially at. Other, either, whether it's an acquisition or mergers, all of these things change your business fundamentally. And so it's important to understand really where you want to go as a result overall to, and that's going to require you to zoom out and zoom out of the day to day.
[01:09:32:22 - 01:09:41:20]
You know, sometimes we'll see business leaders too, where you're in that day to day and you know that you should be out of it and you don't necessarily know how to get out of it.
[01:09:42:22 - 01:09:56:19]
And then people continue to come to you with questions that you feel is kind of pulling you back into it and not, not in a way that you mind necessarily because again, that's, that's where our passion is. That's what we get excited about. That's what we can do well.
[01:09:57:21 - 01:10:31:12]
And it kind of sucks you back into that day to day. Yeah. I think of clients of ours too, right? They'll take that customer question. They'll take that customer call. They'll price them out for things like fertilizer. And even though they know that that's better served by one of their employees, it's hard for them to kind of step out of that. And so there's things that they need to do to make sure that their, that their employees are equipped, that they've set clear expectations and boundaries too, so that their team knows what, what needs to be done so that they can have the time to focus on the business.
[01:10:31:12 - 01:11:03:14]
we'll try to do in this podcast is take some concepts, take some skills, take some tools that we've learned that we teach our clients, break them down into kind of just piece by piece. And over the course of probably several episodes, we'll take different models. We'll instruct, share what we know, share how it might apply to you in your business, and then share that one thing of how can you look at this, use this lens now to look at your own business and to apply it. What would you add?
[01:11:04:18 - 01:11:06:04]
Is that they get a spark at the end?
[01:11:07:16 - 01:11:18:09]
Nice use of the spark. I'm not sure it is. We haven't made that official, but there could be a spark at the end of every spark at the end of every episode.
[01:11:19:10 - 01:12:08:09]
Sometimes the sparks may be bigger, sometimes they may be smaller. Yeah, we'll leave a little spark. We'll leave a little spark. Sometimes the sparks might be from us. Sometimes the sparks might be from our fabulous guests. Exactly. Right? Exactly. What's the one thing that they did to make a difference? Yeah. Because it's important, I think, to hear not just from us. I think it's important to hear from people who have been there, right, that understand what other business owners are going through, understands the fluctuation, understands just the cycles within the Ag industry overall, to help remind us even too that everything comes back around, that we've all been through different parts of it, and that there's good things coming. Yes.
[01:12:08:09 - 01:14:18:14]
because-- How is it? Did I have-- do I have everybody on pins and needles now? What is she going to say?
[01:14:20:08 - 01:14:20:19]
It's culture.
[01:14:21:23 - 01:14:29:00]
And to me, personally, I love talking about culture because, one, it is so powerful and impactful to the business.
[01:14:30:01 - 01:14:49:01]
And two, you hear a lot about it. You know, we need to have a positive culture. We know that culture can retain employees. We hear a lot about it. There's not a lot about, what do you do about it? How do you define it? What do you do about it? It feels really kind of big and hard to wrap your arms around. Right.
[01:14:50:09 - 01:14:53:03]
And then there isn't necessarily a step to take.
[01:14:54:06 - 01:15:01:02]
So this was big enough. As we started to talk about this, this is kind of multiple ways. We have multiple ways that we wanted to address this.
[01:15:02:06 - 01:16:20:07]
One of which was, so what is it? And how do you know if you need to focus on it? Mm-hmm. So how would you define-- how do you define culture? Well, you know, I think of one of the quotes that we use in a lot of our presentations, the Frederick Bachman one of, like, culture isn't what you say. It's what you allow. So good. Such a good one. And I look at it, you know, one of the stories I use in some of my presentations is way back in one of my first roles as a manager coming into just a really tough situation and having a leader say, we've tried everything. We just, like, this is a place he just kind of resigned himself to the fact that this place had a really tough culture and nothing was going to change out of it. And as we got to talking and I said, well, if the culture isn't-- the culture itself is the outcome. The culture is the result. And so if we want something to happen as a different-- that has a different result or a different outcome, we need to change the inputs that are going into it. If we keep putting the same inputs into it, nothing is going to happen on the backside. And I think for me, just thinking about culture as something living and breathing, not like as a bacteria, right? Or a good bacteria, maybe, I guess you could say.
[01:16:21:13 - 01:16:23:01]
Depends on the outcome and the result.
[01:16:24:03 - 01:16:34:21]
Right. Culture is one of those things where it's living and breathing and it changes based on the inputs that it's given. So what do we need to do to change the result that we're seeing within the business?
[01:16:35:22 - 01:16:56:21]
And so there's lots of different things that you can see, hear, feel within organizations, within businesses that give you a sense for what is happening within the culture at any given point. So do you want to speak a little bit to those? Well, there were a couple of things when I was listening to you talk through that we work with, obviously, businesses that have multiple locations.
[01:16:58:05 - 01:17:01:21]
And there's kind of this feeling of the culture is what it is.
[01:17:02:21 - 01:17:24:20]
You're not going to change it. You're not going to change it. It's who they are. It's really driven by who's in the location and you're not going to change it. So a recognition that the culture is there, that they may be different, less of a recognition of that it's okay to change it.
[01:17:25:20 - 01:17:45:03]
And or kind of getting to your point of less of a recognition of it's worthwhile to change. I think sometimes when people look at the locations of their stores or the locations of the businesses, they're focusing on the positive, which is good.
[01:17:46:10 - 01:17:58:19]
They're not always identifying those gaps. And so one of the, I was going to say one of my favorite quotes, but it's actually the dictionary definition of culture. So I don't know. Is that a quote?
[01:17:59:23 - 01:18:09:10]
I think you can call it a quote. I'm going to call it a quote. I think you just have to make sure that the citation is there. The citation is the dictionary. Yes, it might be dictionary.com.
[01:18:11:22 - 01:18:29:05]
Now we're getting confirmation that it is on dictionary.com. Is that culture is a set of behaviors consistent of a specific group. And what I like about that is when you talk about the input, it's the behaviors that the behaviors that you see define your culture.
[01:18:30:11 - 01:19:08:16]
And it's fascinating then because every, every group, every organization, every business, every location has a culture. So it's not whether or not you have one. You have one. It's what is your culture. And it's really being clear about the behaviors that you want to see and you don't want to see. And I'm reflecting back on a client that we worked with who was really excited because they felt that they had a really a family culture. Well, when you dug into it, it was described as a family culture.
[01:19:09:18 - 01:19:18:06]
The business owner, general manager, and assistant general manager were behaving in ways like it was a family.
[01:19:19:13 - 01:19:34:20]
So there were behaviors that they would support their employees, provide time off, give free lunches, offer great benefits. So really saw that as a family culture, which is good.
[01:19:36:02 - 01:19:45:02]
Not necessarily seeing some of the specific behaviors from the employees. So behaviors like doing only what they're asked to do and nothing more.
[01:19:46:16 - 01:19:49:16]
Making comments like that's not my job.
[01:19:51:20 - 01:20:46:23]
Taking longer than necessary breaks. So you have a break time, 15 minutes, they leave to go to break early. They come back late and they're dragging out some of that time. And I think in that case, the business owner really saw it as we have a good culture. It's very much like a family because of how they were treating their behaviors and how they wanted to see it. When you really stepped back and looked at the behaviors of the employees, there was a gap. So the actual culture, once you looked at the behaviors, was one of they didn't have initiative, there wasn't a focus on quality, there wasn't a focus on even doing what's best for the business and not doing what's best for the business for the sake of the business. Doing what's best for the business because it positively impacts the business, the employees, the community. So the culture was very different.
[01:20:48:07 - 01:21:26:14]
And you see that more when you recognize. You see that gap when you start to recognize more of those behaviors. Well, I have been surprised, I think, over the years in working with clients where when we start, so say we've defined, for instance, their values, their goals, kind of their strategy within a project, and an employee relations issue or some employee concern comes up and we'll be talking with them. And one of the questions that we'll ask pretty frequently, I can think of several instances where I've asked this of a client, where they'll say, well, I mean, it's okay.
[01:21:27:15 - 01:21:36:02]
Or they'll make excuses about something and I'll say, well, are you okay with this? So if they do this again, is that okay?
[01:21:37:05 - 01:22:21:22]
Well, I mean, because they care so much about this person and they do have concern. They're not necessarily seeing the impact that that particular behavior can have on the overall culture if it's not addressed properly. And addressing properly doesn't mean that I have to walk somebody out the first time that something is messed up. It's about understanding and recognizing those behaviors that are not consistent with the type of culture that I want and making sure that I'm stepping into and talking with that employer, that team member when it is something that's out of alignment. Yes. Well, and I think about we do see a lot of gaps in culture. We hear what leaders want to have as the culture of their organization.
[01:22:23:12 - 01:23:43:10]
And we see a lot of the behaviors that to me are like death by a thousand paper cuts. It's the behaviors that just cut away at the culture. We also see really positive ones. For sure. I have to admit, when somebody comes in and talks about their culture and what's important and what stands out, I always have a mental note of, yes, that's what the leader is saying. I want to see what the employees say and do, similar to that family. And yet it's not reflected in some of the behaviors. I remember at one point we went to go visit a client. They had five locations, feed retail, five locations that we had. We had been meeting with the leaders and they were talking a lot about service. And I was like, mm hmm. Yeah. Yep. How is this going to show up? We were inside that store and a customer walked in, a clerk, an employee, walked up to the customer and said, hey, I saw you drive up. I already have your product in the car. All you have to do is pay. Yep. And I thought, that's it. Great example. That is the behavior that aligns with the culture that they talked about having. Now, I'm guessing that there are employees and some of the behaviors that weren't that, there's probably an employee who stands behind the counter and is on their phone.
[01:23:44:13 - 01:23:45:15]
We hear that a lot too.
[01:23:47:08 - 01:25:11:23]
But that was a great example of, yes, I'm seeing, we're seeing the behaviors that defines our culture. What examples, what examples have you seen? Yeah, I can think of, gosh, yeah, give us a day and then we'll come up with all the examples that we've seen or heard from clients too. I think of one, even last year after a hurricane had come through the area, a lot of power outages within the area and this particular client, several of their employees, even though they didn't have power in their own homes, came into work because they said that we know that everything will be taken care of for us. Like we've got that. We know that our customers need to make sure that they've got feed for their animals, that they've got propane. So we're just going to go ahead and take care of them. Like we'll work out the details later. This is what needs to happen. And it was such a fun, so many fun discussions as a result of that with this particular client to document this right now, right? These are the behaviors that we need to make sure that you're recognizing because these are all examples of exactly what you have said you are about in your values. So let's make sure that you're drawing attention to it so that other employees, other team members at different locations who may not have been impacted in that same way, know that this is something that's important to you as a business regardless of what location they're in. So thinking back to the what's one thing somebody could do,
[01:25:13:14 - 01:25:21:07]
what would you recommend to business owners and leaders to identify a potential gap in culture?
[01:25:22:08 - 01:25:33:03]
So I would start listening for, and you could be the person who takes around like a little notebook in your back pocket, but walk around and start listening. Just start listening.
[01:25:34:14 - 01:26:41:19]
Sometimes we hear these things, but they're not always registering. So listen to the responses that you're hearing, whether your team members are engaging with other employees, whether they're engaging with customers on the phone or in person. Think about what it is you're hearing from them and pay attention to the behaviors that you're seeing too. So whether these are behaviors that you want to continue seeing or that you don't, don't judge in the moment. Just take note of it. Write it down. Take note of it. Take two or three days and just have that little notebook with you. And without judgment, just write it down. And then at the end of that time, whether that's take a day, take two days, take a whole week even, look at what are the themes that you're seeing in there. What are the things that I consider it that really chafe you, right? So it's not a complete like cut. I'm not just like openly bleeding from an injury or something. It's something that just it chafes you. It's just a little bit sore. That just is not quite right. What are the themes that start showing up? What would you add?
[01:26:43:13 - 01:27:04:10]
I think that is such a big one because so many times we see the behaviors we want to see. Where we think kind of that idea that we talked about before of things are the way we want to see it. And so we're only seeing those behaviors or that we're accepting it for what it is. That idea of truly listen and watch.
[01:27:05:13 - 01:27:26:17]
Not in a creepy listen and watch way, right? We're not trying to catch somebody doing something wrong. The intent is to really see because that's how you can get beyond that. I'm only seeing what I need to see or focusing so much on the outcome or the result rather than the input for it. That behaviors are key.
[01:27:27:19 - 01:27:41:14]
Absolutely. And getting specific. So if there's one piece of feedback that we are giving to clients, whether that's in our leadership development program or when we're working on projects with them, it's get more specific. Get more specific.
[01:27:42:15 - 01:28:11:17]
OK, they weren't acting like a team member or they weren't showing teamwork. OK, get more specific. What was it that they were doing? What did they say that leads you to believe that they weren't demonstrating teamwork? So the more specific you can get, the better your outcome, the better your result of being able to identify what those behaviors are that either need to be adjusted or need to be continued. Well, and I think about that with service. Oh, my team provides great service. What does that mean?
[01:28:12:19 - 01:28:33:18]
What is what is that specific behavior that they're doing? When I think about that example of the employee who supported the customer, knew the person by name, knew exactly what they needed, found the product, put it in their car, greeted the person.
[01:28:35:04 - 01:28:40:15]
Even the example of they came in because they knew they had to support the customers. Yep, great customer service.
[01:28:42:06 - 01:29:25:03]
They the employees at that point came into work, even though they hadn't been asked or told. Right. They found ways to identify what customers needed so that they could support them. Right. So it is that one of you will hear this theme from Aaron a lot, no matter what we're talking about. It's get specific. It's get specific. Yeah. Because otherwise it's too broad of a too broad of a brush. For sure. All right. So the spark for today is to listen. Listen. Listen, write notes. I mean, also watch. Watch and listen. Take notes. Yeah. Don't judge. Don't judge. Just listen. Take the notes and then look at what themes come up as a result. Now, what I would love to hear.
[01:29:26:06 - 01:30:02:10]
Yeah. Is what people see. I know. I really want to hear. That's that's. That's a hard part about having this conversation, which is the two of us is I want to hear what's happening on the other end. Absolutely. So please share with us. Yes. What you see. What are those specific behaviors that define your culture and those that chafe you? That was a good word. I did death by a thousand cuts. Chafing is a much better description. Right. It's a little bothersome. Yeah. And after a while you're like, oh, I've got a blister. Yes. Oh, tell me. Yes. That's why I like that one. It's good.
[01:30:03:22 - 01:30:06:08]
So this has been a really fun conversation for me today.
[01:30:07:14 - 01:31:08:02]
And I feel like this is a bit of how we operate behind the scenes. We had a we had a client at one point that we were talking to and getting excited about something and he said, you guys really are dorks. And I mean this in the best possible way. Was it dorks or nerds? Either way. Either way. I mean, we embrace them both. Yeah. So I do find we get on with you on a call, just the two of us, and we'll get so excited about our discussions that we have topics like this. And then I realized one and preach into the choir because you and I share the same passion in both of those ways that it's fun to be able to have the dialogue and now hear what other people say or think that it's not limiting the conversation to us. So I'm excited to continue the conversations. Agreed.
[01:31:10:06 - 01:31:10:06]