# It’s All the Same… But Different

Source: https://dairycoach.com/its-all-the-same-but-different/
Published: 2013-02-27
Author: Tom Wall

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For the past week, hundreds of the country’s most talented college football players were in Indianapolis for the NFL’s annual Scouting Combine. The “Combine” is where the nation’s top collegiate stars are invited to showcase their physical ability in front of NFL talent scouts before the upcoming draft. Every player goes through the same physical tests to prove how fast, strong, and agile they are with goal of increasing their “draft value”. Basically, their college career serves as their portfolio, and the Combine serves as their interview.

And as important as each athlete’s physical ability is, that’s only a part of what the scouts are evaluating. The other part of the Combine’s week-long activities deals with a player’s intellectual capacity and emotional maturity. It turns out that most personnel guys put a lot of value in a prospect’s character, aptitude, and behavioral traits too. That makes sense, right? After all, the team isn’t just getting a top-notch football player, they’re getting a person.

So, how does the NFL Combine relate to your dairy? Regardless of the industry or company, as long as there are people involved, achieving the end goal requires that people work together toward achieving a common goal.

Let’s face it, to some degree, NFL teams have an easier job of putting their team together than a dairy farm. The supply of football “workers” is almost endless… almost every college-aged football player in the country dreams of playing in the NFL. But the reality is that only a fraction of a fraction of those “applicants” have what it takes to make it in the pro’s. And the annual Combine helps make the “pro football filter” even more efficient. So in the end, I guess the “quality labor pool” extends into every industry, and even more so in high-end “specialty” professions.

But just like your dairy, your favorite NFL team struggles with similar challenges as you do. Even though they pay their guys millions of dollars per year, they have to deal with the financial constraints of a salary cap and limited roster spots too. And once they’ve “hired” their people, like you, they still have to figure out how to get people with conflicting personalities to get along, work together, and accomplish a shared goal.

Among a lot of similarities (and a ton of differences), there is one difference that stands out between dairies and NFL franchises. Coaches and personnel guys in the NFL are a lot more deliberate when it comes to their people. They REALLY focus on people. They have a “people plan” and they obsess over it. When say that people are their greatest asset, they mean it.

No, they don’t always “get it right” with every guy they draft, but it’s not for a lack of trying. They put a lot of time, money, and effort into every person they add to their team. And sure, I guess if you were paying someone a million dollars a year, you would too, right?

But big money aside, how is that different from your dairy? Whether your company has revenue and expenses in the hundred-million-dollar range or the hundred-thousand-dollar range, does the math, the headache, or the impact of each team member really change? As the saying goes, “everything is relative”, and every person on your team impacts the way your team performs.

Let’s say you have just one employee on each shift who milks all of your cows and tends to every calving. That one employee is responsible for harvesting 100% of your milk and making sure 100% of your future milking herd is cared for at birth. But chances are you have more than one person on every shift, right? Let’s say you have five people on a shift taking care of a thousand cows, the impact of one person out of five (1:5) is still more valuable than one cow out of a thousand (1:1000). Regardless of how many people comprise each shift at your dairy, in the end, your people are in charge of taking care of 100% of your business when they’re working.

As the dairy’s leader, it’s your job to you build your team and prepare them to win. You chose and hired your people to make a positive impact, right? So if your people aren’t giving you the performance that you expected when you hired them, why do you think that is? Is it because of the decision you made on the day that you hired them? Or is it because of what you’ve been doing ever since?