That’s one of my primary roles and goals in life, is to develop leaders. You know, if I have people around me that are better than I am, we’re going to move a lot faster. And so it’s something I’m a firm believer in it. We put a lot of emphasis on leadership development and business development. We spend a lot of time on that here because it’s the most important thing we have. We are a company that’s made up of people, and it’s our most important asset as a company. And we have to spend a lot of time developing it and nurturing it. If you want people to be inspired and you want people to latch onto a purpose and really go and drive it, you have to give them true ownership in it. So that’s a little bit tricky at times because I think people will give accountability without responsibility or responsibility with no accountability. Getting that mix correct is something that I’ve seen. It takes the lid off of people, when it’s theirs, they understand the purpose, they’re truly accountable for it. At the end of the day, they will go further and faster than you ever dreamed they would. And so it’s a core value within the company of just being transparent about everything from the financials of the business. Our leadership team is very in touch with those things. They own it and they are decision-makers. It changes every day, and you keep communicating, keep it transparent, and people can get behind that. And when they’re running, you stay out of their way. What kind of leader are you, Beau? I like to think of myself as a servant leader. I wake up every day and I think about what I’m going to do for my team, not what I need them to do for me.
It’s not a new concept of servant leadership, but it’s always been important to me. I’m not a flashy leader. I don’t like to get up and give the fire-and-brimstone type talks to people. We just communicate. I’m very transparent. If there’s a problem, we talk about it. I have high expectations, but you have to have high expectations if you want to be part of a growing organization. As long as you’re fair about those expectations, and again, empower people and create the opportunities for them to achieve them, it really creates a dynamic and fun place to have a career. Listening is something that I continually work on every single day of my life. But you have to listen, you have to understand, and then you have to not tell people what to do, but help them develop in such a way that they can figure it out themselves. What about innovation and technology? We’ve seen the rapid advancement of tech in the swine industry. How does Carthage stay on top of it? And are there any new technologies or practices that you’re integrating for success? I think of innovation and technology in two ways, Jim, the first way is obviously what you’re talking about, right? The new gadgets and things that have come to the market, and there’s been a lot of them, a lot of them are really great. I think where most innovation comes from probably not just in our industry, but really throughout the world, is also figuring out how to use older technologies in different ways or improve things or think about them differently. And so we keep our fingers on the pulse of that new technology. I mean, all the stuff that’s coming. Again, a lot of that comes through our R&D team. We have great relationships really across the industry and get to do a lot of research with a lot of different organizations. We’re also not afraid to go put something in a barn. As an example, like the SoundTalks cough monitors. We have those in one of our research barns. We try to use our research facilities as a bit of a screening ground for a lot of the new technology to make sure that we understand it, and what it can do. But some of it you can’t. It has to be applied on a broader scale. And so we will do that.
WHEN THEY’RE RUNNING, YOU STAY OUT OF THEIR WAY. On empowering employees to problem-solve
So we always try to right-size it and, and look for the places where we can actually be successful with it.
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