I am sitting in a conference room with a company’s CEO and his father. The father is the founder and chairman of the board. I had made a presentation about performing an organizational development evaluation for their business to help them focus their investment on people.

It is 10 a.m. on a November morning in 1981. A 15-year-old boy is standing across the desk from his dad at his dad’s cardboard factory. The dad is screaming and complaining, pointing out who knows what. And then he comes down on the young boy, telling him he can’t do anything right.

Every day there are conversations of different types occurring on your dairy. These interactions happen to everyone, owners, managers and employees – and they are the day-to-day conversations that affect the life of the dairy and the life of everyone involved. It is important for your radar to be at its highest awareness because what makes a conversation crucial is: First, that opinions do vary from person to person. Second, that the stakes are high depending on the situation.

What is consciousness and why does it matter to your dairy? Consciousness is the capacity to catch and learn from reality, to be attentive and paying attention to our internal world and to the world that surrounds us. It is what allows us to adapt to our environment and to act in order to get the most out of our potential in life. As humans, we are able to think and act beyond instinctive impulses and conditioning – we are able to “manage” ourselves. And even though we can manage ourselves, being autonomous is a possibility, not a gift – we need to develop it through conscious choices.

Low milk price, high costs of feed, an employee with a really bad attitude – now SCC has spiked for the week – can you take all the pressure? All of a sudden, someone comes and adds to the bad news; you react and you unleash a reaction all human beings have been dealing with since humankind has been around. Even though the thinking human brain has somewhat evolved over thousands of years, there are parts of the human brain that haven’t had a hardware upgrade in about 100,000 years. According to world-renowned emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman, most of us are still acting out of the ancient fight-freeze-or-flight response, and an upgrade is long overdue.

The evolution, or should I say revolution, of the dairy industry in the U.S. seems to accelerate as time passes. When I came to this country in 1987 there were around 125,000 producers in the country. As we close 2011 there are about 50,000 dairies producing wholesome products for the country and the world. What is it taking for you to stay in business and make it sustainable over the long haul? What changes have you had to make? One thing is for sure, we have had to realize we can’t make it without high-quality employees.