Is raising pigs so different to working with new technologies

The pace of life does not ultimately depend on the environment but on the individual who allows himself to be led; but the environment obviously plays a part

After much thinking and taking advantage of his inside knowledge, the indiscretion of some foolish acquaintances and the rise in the price of pork meat, he decided to start a pig farm.

The sale of his possessions in the big city realized some initial capital, and with the help of some highly expensive credit, he launched his enterprise.

The first stages were particularly hard, unremitting hours of work, awful mistakes, unending expenses.

But as he was perseverant, self critical, questioning, continuously learning, trying things out, etc., bit by bit he developed the techniques that allowed him some breathing space.

The work of a farm seems simple but there are many things to do:

• Select and buy the raw material (the mothers)
• Feed the animals properly
• Inseminate the mothers
• Wean the piglets
• Treat the sick
• Undertake improvements in electricity supply, the building, refrigeration, cleaning etc. (in order to reduce costs)
• And a whole raft of other things...

Acquiring the basic knowledge of any new job takes a considerable effort.

The challenge of learning the techniques is very gratifying in the short term.

At the beginning he made a very common mistake: he romanticized the work and focused on things that he enjoyed doing rather than on the things that had to be done:

• Excessive attention paid to small details
• Hours spent looking through catalogues of labour saving devices and new technology applied to the farm
• Looking for integrated management programs

These diversions caused problems with productivity:

• Premature death of the piglets
• Irregular fattening, including developmental problems (malformations)
• Lost fertilization cycles
• Failure to follow accountancy practices (invoicing)

It is easy to mistake the necessary for the indispensable and easier still to be carried away with what calls out for attention or what we are better at.

Many diversions are provoked by ones previous work experiemce.

At the beginning, there were not enough hours in the day for the work that needed to be done and he was often at the point of giving up.

After this initial period he decided to bring a daily discipline into the work which helped him avoid forgetting vital tasks and allowed him to take advantage of spare moments to do less urgent tasks.

It is vital to learn how to manage one's time effectively.

Without personal discipline everything is more complicated and nothing works.

He realized that there are some things that must never be left undone, some technical and some organizational: the basics of quality.

Other entrepreneurs who didn't have the same standards soon lost heart and gave up their businesses because their vision was too idealistic and simple.

If we are simplistic then it is likely that we will make too many mistakes.

Setting up a company is not the same as working for someone else; it has its own advantages, risks and problems.

It is necessary to analyse the risks before committing to action.

Without him noticing, several months passed and the business was working at full steam, growing slowly and sustainably.

The news of the success spread, but more slowly than the news of the failure of a medium sized local meat producer from whom he was able to buy a part of the production facilities. 

The only problem was that the addition of the new facilities meant that he had to expand his infrastructure.

Taking advantage of the failures of other producers and with the new contract in his hand, it was easy to secure new credit and acquire the new farm at a reasonable price.

But the other farm required much more work, more than double to start it up.

Initially in order to set it in motion he took on the new load personally, but soon he needed another person. He had to contract a new employee to help him.

People say, "What luck this person has had". In real life, except for the lottery, I think that luck plays little part.

"Lady luck favors the prepared", "Good luck follows hard work".

The requirements were simple: someone bright, ready to work on a pig farm, preferably with experience and prepared to work for a reduced wage (in line with market rates).

The job market was not very large as, in that area, there was not a great need for work.

Willingness usually makes up for other deficiencies.

Although you have to be cautious, with the passage of time, willingness can make up for a lack of knowledge.

The entrepreneur and the employee eventually each became responsible for one farm.

But we mustn't forget one thing; the employee saw the work on the farm as a source of income and the entrepreneur saw it as a part of his life.

The entrepreneur was 100% committed, the employee 100% involved, but not 100% committed.

The independence of the employee and modest commercial success prompted the entrepreneur to take control of two new farms that had gone to ruin.

Now, the new farms meant that new staff were required to work on them.

Without being aware of it, our entrepreneur had made a little estimation error. By doubling the number of staff needing training it was not longer possible to apply the same training model that had worked in the past.

The qualified employee began to feel a bit overwhelmed and disorientated.

Now that he had "his" technical work under control he felt that this was a new responsibility that he had neither sought nor wished for and for which he was not trained.

Has the risk of losing the most qualified staff increased?

Does everyone want to, and can they, change their level of responsibility?

The first employee still felt responsible for pursuing the work on his farm and spent more time thinking about this than thinking about what the staff under his control were doing.

In his subconscious he continued to feel responsible for "his" farm.

The prospect of uncertainty about his job began to make itself felt... The company was entering a period of transition.

To change one's habits is difficult.

In the same way that we lose visual acuity in the evening because the light changes faster than we are aware, so in companies we can lose focus if we don't notice (or ignore) some changes that may not be obvious.

In addition, because of his lack of attention, each new employee was developing and setting up his own method of working.

Each one of them was beginning to think that his own method of working was the best, or at least making his own work more comfortable.

Months later, everything was working more or less well.

The work of the entrepreneur had increased exponentially: administrative tasks, commercial tasks, chasing bad debts, random checks on the farms, solving problems that the employees did not have the capacity to resolve, helping out during peaks of work, etc.

Another personal problem that occurred was that he himself was providing cover for the time off and holidays of his employees (animals don't understand holidays).

Also, another thing increased: frustration.

Before, the entrepreneur had control (or at least it seemed that way to him) of the most important things; the number of dead pigs, cycles of insemination, how each animal was eating, advance indications of illness...

Now, each time that he asked for information, each employee gave him partial information and in a form and a degree of detail that made it difficult for him to compare with others.

It was not possible to say that any employee was doing anything wrongly; quite the reverse, some stood out for their capacity for innovation and resolution of problems.

But each one did it in a different, not predictable or measurable, way.

In addition, as there was no common way of doing things, if there was an improvement in one farm, it was difficult to replicate in another.

In order to resolve his frustration, the owner constantly made an effort to explain the need for the data that he required.

The problem lay in trying to explain a concept to someone who was not prepared to listen, who was not prepared to see the reality of another's view.

The owner of the farms began to wonder if his selection criteria for his staff had been adequate.

He began to question the value of certain of his employees who were competent but not particularly cooperative.

The situation was more or less controllable but then something unexpected happened; a large company selling meat products ordered the equivalent of whole of his current production capacity.

Again he had to double his infrastructure in order to take advantage of this opportunity.

He consulted his employees to see if it was possible to double production.

The reply was unanimous. "Impossible, we are already at full stretch".

If a company cannot grow, another will come and make up the deficit.

We have to be sure that are area, our department, and company can scale up.

This still more frustrated the entrepreneur because if he, with his own effort, had reached this stage, how was it not possible to go further?

Possibly, what he didn't understand was that, like on other occasions, his employees'  perception of the business was not the same as his own. For him this was an opportunity and a potential expansion. For them it was more work and possible reward for someone else.

He again doubled the number of farms and the staff.

This process was particularly traumatic; there was the need, the urgency, few staff prepared to work on a farm, etc.

But having done this, the problem changed again; he had to put in place the systems so that the staff worked as he wanted them to.

He thought about documenting his methodology but didn't have the time, means nor ability to undertake this work.

So he decided to pay a person who would define his methodology according to his instructions.

The qualifications of his staff were appropriate for the work that they were undertaking (obviously they were not experts in methodology and the organizations of companies, which would not have been productive).

How do you think that the current team would perceive a methodology (when each one of them had their own method of working that made good sense to them) written by  a third party under the directions of the chief who was hardly ever there? And what about the new team just starting up?

Do you think that the level of commitment would be the same for all?

What behaviour should the staff be showing now in order to be considered valuable?

What is more valuable for the organization?

1. That a farm works well under the control of an individual.
2. That one person with the will and the ability to teach transmits the good practices that will work for many farms.

What would happen if a service company offered subcontractors, who had been trained in the most modern processes in a farm school, to our entrepreneur? With the financial advantages of subcontracting? Would he take them on? Would the existing staff blame him if the entrepreneur followed this model? (I am not suggesting either yes or no).

As is becoming obvious it is possible that while still being a qualified technician our perception of reality can change and we can lose our value in the organization with the passage of time.

Possibly we would be much more important for our organization (if we have the desire for growth) if we have abilities like:

• Transmitting knowledge
• Training new members
• Helping other colleagues that are slower than ourselves
• Innovation and self-learning

... rather than doing a partial job, without following an established methodology that is hardly repeatable.

We mustn't fall asleep... (although I could always be wrong).