Leadership Lessons Learned from Livestock

A workshop for business professionals

Vickie J. Maris, MS Ed Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Helping people run fit businesses and lead fit lives

InstructorVickie Maris has been showing ponies and horses since age 4. She started training at age 9 and has shown her nationally-recognized Connemaras around the US for 25 years. Her stallion, Kerrymor Madison, was honored with the An Tostal Hall of Fame Trophy from the American Connemara Pony Society in 2002 for Outstanding Performance Stallion.

In more recent years she has raised and shown French Angora rabbits and performance llamas.

In her work life, she is an entrepreneur running Heartsong Fit, an online business in which Vickie creates and disseminates content in the form of ebooks, online courses and groups, webinars, teleseminars and a podcast to help people run fit businesses and lead fit lives.

She also holds a certification from Purdue University as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and is director of graduate programs in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue. Her degrees – a B.S. in agricultural communications and an M.S. Ed. in learning design and technology (online course design for adult learners) – are both from Purdue.

Partnering with a team member on an obstacle course to better learn one another’s personalities and strengths.

The years of training and showing Savannah helped me to recognize other skills she had that later we deployed in her work as a therapy animal. This allowed her to continue “working on my team” well after her laminitis had curtailed her show career.

Pairing (or Grouping) Your Team Members

I provide the 4-H kids guidance at the beginning, but let the group sort themselves out into the partnerships that have the best potential for the 4-H project. In the previous slide, you can see from the postures of children and llamas, and the expressions on their faces, that it’s a happy group. It turned into a productive group that placed well in classes throughout the season.

We use this technique in the Medical Science Training Program in which Purdue Biomedical Engineering partners with the IU School of Medicine. Our students in this program are earning their MD and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. They start with two years of medical school before they transition to Purdue for four years of the PhD program. During the first two years of medical school, they spend the summer months rotating through the research labs of the biomedical engineers at Purdue, so the students and the mentors/researchers, can determine the best fit for each student, mentor, lab and project.

Team members recognize your voice and respond. Do they anticipate your nurturing presence or do they have a sense of dread and shrink away?

When you’re asking a team member to take on something new, do you provide them with the appropriate training? Do you set them up for successes?

Importance of Knowing Everyone By Name

Healthy Team Environment

Multiple Generations in the Workforce

Getting Your Team Unstuck

Diverse Roles of Team Members

Recognizing and Rewarding Teams

In the book, Drive, by Daniel H. Pink (author of A Whole New Mind) the importance of beginning with a diverse team is discussed.

While a 6-horse hitch of draft horses may appear to be evenly matched in their style and looks. The pairs actually represent the diversity mentioned above.

Pink suggests that we set up a Type I organization with diverse teams. Harvard’s Teresa Amabile advises in Pink’s book, “Set up work groups so that people will stimulate each other and learn from each other, so that they’re not homogeneous in terms of their backgrounds and training. You want people who can really cross-fertilize each other’s ideas.

Photo used with permission of Jim GreenmanHistoric Prophetstown Plow Days

Battle Ground, IN

Ray Powell, New Castle, Kentucky, speaks to his team of Belgian pulling horses with the gentleness of a violin teacher on the first day of lessons with a 6-year-old. “They’ll get to where they trust me, and they’ll pull harder for me than they will for anybody else.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTM-EzD4pggTeam of Belgians pulling a milk truck out of a snowy predicament

Feb 21, 2011 Ottawa, Pennsylvania

http://youtu.be/cq5dd7JLk1s Team of Percherons pulling a stranded auto from the ditch, 2007

Backbone Cross Country Ski Farm and Organic Food Farm, Garrett County Maryland

A note about the previous slide: When the team owner was asked if one horse could have done the job, his response was, “Probably one could have done it, especially if it was Molly. However they pull better in a team, drawing on each other’s power and motivation, and under slippery conditions no sense in pushing it.”

Are you listening to the members of your team for their insights about your project and the places to “rest?”

Something else we can pick up from llama behavior in a pack string is their constant communication. Llamas hum as a way to stay connected. In a long line of pack llamas, the llamas in the back will not always have visual line of sight with the llamas in the front of the string. In order to know where they all are, the llamas hum to each other.

Are your team members located in different geographic locations? Do they have a medium for communicating with each other to “alert one another of danger” or to simply keep each other informed about things like valuable spots for resources or opportunities for strengthening relationships with customers or developing prospects into customers?”

Or do you not allow your team to communicate in a medium that works best? Do you have only your leaders in a room for a discussion with no input from your middle-string packers or the person that best wraps up the project?

Inspire Employees

– HBR study – for every 1% increase in employee satisfaction and loyalty – there is a ½% to 4% increase in customer loyalty

– “Your job is to inspire employees and to get them to help you create a workplace where everyone feels valued, appreciated, noticed and safe. If you can do that, and add in some fun, you’ll have a place where no employee will want to leave and every customer will want to rush back.” Drew McLellan

Blog post that goes into more detail about the costs of employee turnover: http://bit.ly/CostOfEmployeeTurnover

Excerpt from the above Zane Benefits (April 2013) blog post:• Turnover seems to vary by wage and role of employee. For example, a CAP

study found average costs to replace an employee are:• 16% of annual salary for high-turnover, low-paying jobs (earning under

$30,000 a year). For example, the cost to replace a $10/hour retail employee would be $3,328.• 20% of annual salary for mid-range positions (earning $30,000 to $50,000 a

year). For example, the cost to replace a $40k manager would be $8,000.• Up to 213% of annual salary for highly educated executive positions. For

example, the cost to replace a $100k CEO is $213,000.

Employee retention tips mentioned in article linked above: • Benchmark your employee retention rate• Use proven retention strategies, not guesswork• Don't assume employees are happy (create a high-feedback environment)• Conduct exit interviews

Do you have your team members in a habitat where they are happy? Do you have two “male bettas” in the same tank?

Have you hired someone to be the plecostomus on your team but are you expecting him or her to function in the same way as the rest of your team members?

The Kitchen Aquarium

Pay attention to the communication styles of your team members and respond accordingly.

Do you have a team member whose role requires solitude or an open, clear vision of the task at hand? Are you providing that work environment so that he can do his job or do you have him locked in a cage?

Unlikely TeammatesThere are times when it is far better to let your team members self-select into their roles for

your project. http://youtu.be/Tz_xahxVMXs

Madison and one of my llamas, Velvet, make a cameo appearance in my podcast, Heartsong Fit With Vickie Maris. Episode 10. http://heartsongfit.com/10

Letting Your Team Members Self-Select in Roles

Checking in with your teamhttp://youtu.be/BRkfuldgMXk

“The leader of a team should act like a cell membrane around a cell. You maintain an outline around your team but the shape is going to morph into many different shapes as your team stretches towards new ideas and builds capacity.”

Keeping your climbing skills sharp!

Are you providing a “dirt hill” for your team?

Are you protecting your team from hazards!

Dawn’s Jeremiah McLane

Dawn’s Jeremiah McLane

Do you have your team members’ backs? Are you looking out for

possible dangers or situations that would slow them

down or derail their efforts?

Are you challenging your team members adequately? Are you rewarding them for their efforts with personal, financial and professional rewards? Do you set them up with new roles on more challenging teams? Have you given thought to succession planning?

Are you leading your team in a way that would cause them to not think twice about saving your life (or your business)?

Healthy Team Environment

Multiple Generations in the Workforce

Getting Your Team Unstuck

Diverse Roles of Team Members

Recognizing and Rewarding Teams

Pairing or Grouping Team Members

Leadership Lessons Learned From LivestockHere’s how you can reach me:

My Website: http://bit.ly/LeadershipLessonsOnHeartsongFit

My Social Media First Steps Ebook (available soon): http://bit.ly/1stStepsEbook

My Heartsong Fit Podcast in iTunes: http://bit.ly/HFPodcast

Instagram: http://instagram.com/vickiemaris

Pinterest Business Account: http://bit.ly/HeartsongFitPinterest

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vickiemarisfitness

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vickiemarisGoogle+ Business Page:

https://plus.google.com/+heartsongfit

Google+ Personal Page: https://plus.google.com/+vickiemaris

Slideshare: http://bit.ly/VJMSlideShare

LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/LinkedInVickie

Email: clientcare@heartsongfit.com or vjmaris@purdue.edu