Two decades of working with business and community leaders have alerted me to a new challenge facing family businesses in agriculture. This challenge - of having to be more than just profitable; of having to be sustainable - has also spawned a new breed of leaders. Whether from a small intergenerational farm or a mammoth corporation, wise leaders realize that a key to a sustainable business is the recognition that the quality of work we do cannot be separated from the quality of life we create. The new breed of leaders know that they must have a vested interest in nurturing the human spirit of the workplace, since the state of workers' spirits has a direct bearing upon the quality of their work. They also know that if work injures the human spirit, even if it's profitable, it isn't good work in the end and will not survive into the coming generation. In short, leaders must be committed to nurturing the quality of life of their family members and employees as they build their business. Not only is this good for people; it's good for business.
We all know about financial bank accounts. We make deposits and build up a reserve from which we can make withdrawals when we need to. An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that's been built up in a relationship. It's the feeling of safeness, loyalty, and commitment you have with another human being.
If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through encouragement, honesty, taking time to listen to your input and feelings, respect, kindness, and keeping my commitments, I build up a reserve. The trust between us becomes strengthened, and I can call upon that trust when I need to.
If I neglect the relationship, or abuse it by taking it for granted, not keeping my promises, criticizing you, or ignoring you, my Emotional Bank Account becomes overdrawn. The level of trust diminishes. I have no store from which to draw from, and thus, limited flexibility in the relationship.
Being overdraft in a relationship reminds me of when I spoke to a group of farmers in Southern Alberta a few years ago. After my session, an elderly gentleman approached me, expressed appreciation for my presentation and told me that he had just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. When I congratulated him, he took out a sheet of paper and said, "Son, our generation didn't learn much about connection. Men were taught to show love by working hard and being strong." He handed me the paper with the explanation, "I gave this to my wife fifty years ago: 'I told you I loved you when we got married, and that stands until you hear otherwise!'" That's just the way it was in those days, but today it has to be different. We need to reach out to our loved ones, our employees, and our communities in new ways.
On a piece of paper write down the twenty most important people in your life today - people you have the greatest sense of dependence upon and who depend on you (e.g. spouse, children, extended family, in-laws, business partners, employees, boss, etc.). Then ask yourself, honestly, some of the following questions:
Contribution: The need to know that because we are alive, we make a difference; because I lived, the world is a better place. Developing a sense of contribution is a basic human need. We are born with a basic instinct to contribute. Bring out a vacuum cleaner with a two year old in the house, and you'll know what I mean. They want to "help!" Bake a cake with a four year old in the kitchen, and there is a good chance you'll get the same response. Start working on the tractor with a pre-schooler in the yard, and you are likely to get some "help."
I think there is a basic drive within the human species to strive for contribution. Perhaps it even goes beyond humans. Watch ants in a colony and you will see innate contributing behaviour. Even our dog seems to be bred to please. It may be a survival instinct and yet it seems there is a universal force that drives us all toward a sense of contribution.
Contribution lies at the heart of motivation. When employees have a sense of contribution, motivation is rarely an issue, and when employees don't have a sense of contribution, motivation is always a problem.
During my upbringing, I received a valuable lesson in contribution. When I was twelve, my parents sat me down and said, "David, you are not learning enough about responsibility living in the city. We are going to buy a piece of property twenty miles north of the city and fix up a log cabin. We are putting our house up for sale and moving to the country."
That summer the three of us worked together to renovate a fifty year old log cabin. For the first year we lived there, we had no running water, indoor plumbing, nor central heating. This was the winter of 1968, the coldest winter in the recorded history of Alberta. It was below -30C for thirty consecutive days. We had two stoves to heat the cabin. One was a coal and wood oven in the kitchen; the other, a pot-belly stove in the living room. Both my parents worked in town: Mom worked twenty miles north, and Dad worked twenty miles south. Dad looked after the fires in the morning; I looked after heating the house after school. Actually, there wasn't much choice here. My parents did not get home until 6:00 PM. It was either heat the house or freeze. That's what is called an immediate consequence to behaviour! My parents had no problem motivating me to go to school. I did not want to be at home and freeze!
Every Saturday, Dad and I worked together cutting wood. We started competitions to see who could get the living room the hottest and who could chop the most wood in an hour. The interesting thing was that although these were not necessarily enjoyable times, they were the best of times, in terms of developing closeness with my father and establishing a foundation of responsibility that would last a life-time. I was needed, and I knew it. I was making a significant contribution to my family.
Take an inventory of the key people in your life by asking yourself these questions:
As Antoine de Saint Exupéy puts it in The Little Prince, "It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Character is one of those essentials. It is also one of those words that often turns out to be difficult to pin down. Like all abstractions, you can't see character; you can't touch it; you can't taste it. Tom Wolfe titled his 1979 book about the daring and skill of the young men who pioneered our space program, The Right Stuff. When we are around individuals who have the right stuff - that is, who have good character - we know it. Character is the foundation of a family business. Being in a business without people of character is like living in a home resting on a sand foundation. It will crumble with the least amount of stress.
Character is about knowing what is good and right and most important, loving what is good and right and most important, and doing what is good and right and most important. It is about living a life congruent with our core values. It is about integrity - integrating what we know with how we act. It is about keeping promises. It goes beyond words. Character is about action. Character comes from developing a set of core values and then a set of ideals upon which to base one's life. It is about living a life that is not just based on success and achievement, but comes from a place of meaning and purpose.
Character demands more from us than merely a verbal commitment, a heartfelt desire, or a superficial fulfillment of responsibilities. A person of character is a person with integrity, someone who says what she means, means what she says, and keeps her word. This link between our character and daily actions is reflected in Lord Macaulay's remark that "the measure of a person's real character is what they would do if they know they would never be found out." Another measure of character is what a person does under pressure.
Growing up on a farm, I was surrounded by people of character. Hand shakes made a deal. People kept their promises. I saw people with values. I saw first hand an employee come to work for us for less money than he would have received down the road at a factory, because he respected my father's values.
Unfortunately, I have also been around people without character. I have witnessed, first hand, business and community leaders, present to the world an image of goodness, and then, in the privacy of their own home, abuse and neglect the people they espouse to care about the most.
Sow a thought and you reap an act;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and your reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
The absence of these three cornerstones puts at great peril the long-term sustainability of our business. Gone are the days when we could simply work hard at producing to be successful. Today we must be committed to building people, to nurturing the human spirit, and investing in relationships with them. We must be committed to creating opportunities for people to thrive and flourish in environments that invite contribution, and build workplaces based on character. Being happy, or even pursuing happiness is not enough; we must discover a reason to be happy and build a higher sense of values at every level of the organizations we work in. Our employees, our family members, and our customers are counting on a new way of working together and doing business in the new millennium.