With past experience as a veterinarian, dairyman and entrepreneur, Bruce Vande Steeg works to help farms experiencing growth and management pains.
“My consulting practices are based around what I would call organizational health,” he says. “How do we have a healthy, profitable business?”
Vande Steeg shares his work on the farm often begins when the operation’s owners think they’ve hit a ceiling and aren’t sure how to get past it. They may want to grow, but currently feel overwhelmed and unsure where to go next.
“I typically start with the question of “What does winning look like for the owners or the management team?’ Not just financially, but where they want to go with the company,” Vande Steeg says. “It’s a very holistic approach to how to create a vibrant business that’s good for them and good for the employees.”
Vande Steeg has found many of the issues in a farm business revolve around management processes – or lack thereof.
“You start looking at the different problems and what you think are the underlying root causes,” he says. “I could tell every client there’s not a problem with a cow that doesn’t have a human attached. So, you’ve got to fix the human side and the cow problems go away.”
This proved to be the case on a dairy operation Vande Steeg was consulting for that had high rates of employee turnover and animal loss.
“There was a disconnect between management and labor. When people think you don’t really care about them and you’re just there to use them, they cease to care. They’re just putting in time,” he says. “We had to change management’s perspective and get the right people leading. Once they knew the leaders cared about them as people, things really started to turn around.”
Vande Steeg shares the operation decreased turnovers from over 200% to about 30%. They also turned a $500,000 per month loss into a positive cash flow situation in six months.
He encourages owners and managers to start with the basics, such as which employee does which task and when. Then move on to the details of good leadership: how to have meetings, the best way to communicate, how to interview and hire employees well, and how to train and retain employees.
“Leadership, in my opinion, is where everything rises and falls. With good leadership, the rising tide lifts all ships,” he says.
To hear more about Vande Steeg’s background and experiences, listen to this episode of the Top Producer podcast.
