We all know that livestock are most productive when the conditions around them are optimal – needed nutrients, favorable weather, free from disease and injury.

Let’s begin by comparing owner/managers of two businesses. Our first business is a fast-food franchise that sells products specified by the parent firm to a largely unchanging clientele. Our second business is an upscale independent restaurant in an ever-changing retail location. The businesses are similar in volume of sales and net income. Let’s now compare the roles of the two managers. The first manager works in the business; manages employee hiring, scheduling and performance management; and develops, monitors, and improves all of the processes required to produce a consistent quality food product. He is primarily a working manager.

“I am the owner! Why do I feel so powerless?” “Why don’t my employees do what I tell them?” “I wish I had more influence with my partners.” “Employees frustrate me.” As I teach and interact with farm and agribusiness managers, I frequently hear comments like those above. Why do managers so often feel like this?

Let’s begin by comparing owners/managers of two businesses. Our first business is a fast-food franchise that sells products specified by the parent firm to a largely unchanging clientele. Our second business is an upscale independent restaurant in an ever-changing retail location. The businesses are similar in volume of sales and net income. Let’s now compare the roles of the two managers. The first manager works in the business and manages employee hiring, scheduling/performance management and develops, monitors and improves all of the processes required to produce a consistent quality food product. He is primarily a worker and manager.

Each and every one of us wants and needs feedback, often dreads receiving feedback and is frequently uncomfortable giving feedback. Few of us really understand feedback or manage the process of providing feedback. This column will assist you in selecting the appropriate performance consequence. We begin with a definition of feedback from dictionary.com: “The return of information about the result of a process or activity; an evaluative response.” We constantly give and receive feedback, if not explicitly, then implicitly.

The incredible turbulence we have faced and continue to face in the dairy industry serves notice for the need for management to go to a new, higher level. Albert Einstein’s admonition holds: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” I believe that for most dairy farms and agribusinesses, quality assurance is a key to achieving this new, higher level.