The Moos Room™

[music]
Joe: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. OG3 here. We just had someone actually send in a question on what does that stand for, the OG3? Well, I think we don't know why we started saying it. It happened a long time ago.
Emily: I think you started it, Joe.
Joe: I probably did. Yes.
Emily: Oh, I like how Brad does mean. I think Brad started it actually.
Joe: Who knows? It rhymes, so we kept it. That's what it came down to.
Emily: Yes, it's cute, and three is my favorite number.
Joe: Yes, there you go. OG3. OG, I guess it originally started as the original gangster. That's what it meant. Now, it's evolved a little bit and it just means the original, the founders, the old school. We all know Bradley is definitely old-school. Emily and I have our moments, so it just came to mean the three of us, OG3. Thanks for sending that question in. We also had a couple of emails this week, one following up on our water episode. Good example of water being really, really good for production. We all talked about, it's just the most important thing on your dairy that often gets forgotten.
This particular farmer said that when their water freezes up in the winter and it gets really cold, they lose about half their water space, and they also lose, in conjunction with that, three to four pounds of milk. It's very predictable when that water unfreezes and it becomes available again, they're right back up those three to four pounds. Good example. Thanks for that, that email, Dennis. Shout out to Dennis for listening. We love to get emails from you guys. I get really excited when I open that inbox, and there's just emails everywhere. Keep sending them.
Today as we record this, it's not New Year's Eve, it's New Year's Eve Eve, and we're all excited to start the new year. I think everyone's ready for 2020 to be done. Today, the topic is goals and how to go about that for your farm and your dairy, your beef operation. How do you even start with that process of making goals, setting goals, and then achieving goals eventually? Fortunately, Emily is here and she's going to lead us through this.
Emily: Oh, gosh. I am apparently. Well, with goals, it's like, you can talk about them any time of the year, but when we think of the new year, we think of resolutions and all that fun stuff. We know Joe plans to drop some lbs in the new year.
Joe: Always an issue.
Emily: Right. Bradley has been crushing it. He's lost, I don't know.
Bradley: 31 pounds in 2020.
Joe: I just got to get rid of this. Just double chin. You can't see it though.
Emily: Well, I feel like two chins is acceptable.
Bradley: You should have a goal of coming out and feeding calves with me every day, and we'll take care of that.
Joe: Oh, I'll just shiver it off. Probably
Emily: Have a goal of coming out and helping him with the blood draws so he doesn't screw it up. Anyways.
Joe: Touchy subject.
Emily: When we talk about goals for farmers, this is very basic stuff. I feel like this is gonna be a pretty quick podcast, a short episode for us today. Goals are self-explanatory, and it's just about thinking about where do we want to go. What's our vision? Where are we headed? For me, especially now, goal setting is something I really encourage farms and farmers to do. On the business and the personal level, because goal setting has actually been shown that it could help reduce stress. I'm the big stress advocate here and stress management advocate.
I know some people may think, "Well, no, setting a goal, then I'm just going to stress about that and that's going to be worse." Actually, they find that really a goal. If you set the goal correctly, it serves as a bit of a blueprint. That's actually really helpful to the different pathways in our brains. That can help reduce our stress knowing that we have this blueprint, but also knowing that, yes, things might go wrong. 2020 was a great example of that. Nothing goes to plan, but because we know the nuts and bolts of it, we're still able to work through it a little bit easier and be more resilient to it.
Now, I'm able to fashion goal setting as another stress management tool. Just another reason to do it.
Joe: I feel like I see that a lot though. The reduced stress. I see it even just in daily life where making a list. A list is a form of goal setting. Here's my task that I want to get done, keeps me organized, and when I can lay it out that way, it becomes less overwhelming and I know where to start. That's kind of how I look at it. I totally get that, and I don't think it's a reach at all to wrap that into your farm safety, mental health goal-setting.
Bradley: Well, one thing that I think a lot of people have, we may have goals, but should we be writing down these goals and actually going back to them because I'm sure we all have goals, but how do we figure that out?
Emily: I love it. What a great question. What a great question. Yes. You should write them down, physically write them down. Again, I'm like really on the science for this episode, but also proven that if you actually handwrite something on to a piece of paper, you are more likely to remember it. If it is a task or a goal, you're more likely to follow through on it as well. Yes, typing them up is good, but if you can handwrite them down, I really encourage people to do that. Then also, think about how then do you keep those written goals.
How do you stay accountable to them, I guess is really the point here. I also remind people to split their goals into short-term and long-term, and that's going to mean something different to everybody but I consider short-term, especially from a farming sense, things that you want to achieve within the year and long-term, you're thinking goals for 5 years from now, 10 years from now, et cetera. The nice thing is that you can make short-term goals that are pieces of your long-term goals. Getting back to the writing it down, short-term goals really can be written as a to-do list.
Like you mentioned, I think, Joe, on making lists and doing those things. Short-term goals should be a to-do list. I say write them down. Then I also remind people, keep them somewhere you're going to see them in a really high-traffic area. On the fridge, or if you have a break room at your farm or something like that, where people will see them and be reminded of them because I think for all of us, when we have that reminder, we just want to get rid of the reminder so badly. We do whatever it is that we need to do. That's one thing that I recommend is really keeping those written and visible.
Then for those long-term goals, again, break them down and also have those written down. Keep them somewhere. They maybe don't need to be in a high-traffic area on your fridge, but keep them at the desk. Make sure they're on the top of the pile, or make sure they're in a special folder or something that where they are and that you can get to them.
Joe: I think having it in the front of your mind all the time is good and being able to be able to keep track of it. You brought up timeframe, which I think is a huge piece of goals. Making sure you set a time for when you're going to achieve that because if you just throw a goal out there, vaguely, which happens a lot with New Year's resolutions, especially when we're talking about getting in shape, eating right, all these kind of things. There's a decent amount of data out there to show that somewhere middle of February, there's a huge abandoning of some of these New Year's resolutions, and they track that with return of McDonald's and fast food sales.
They can see when people get off track and get off the bandwagon when it comes to resolution. Keeping it in the forefront of your mind and reminding yourself why it's important is huge. I think another thing that you're flirting around here, Emily, is measuring or measurable. How are you gonna know that you've achieved it? A task can be done, but if you're setting a goal, part of that has to be able to measure it and know whether or not you've achieved success.
Emily: Well, Joe, that is a wonderful segue into The Moos Room pop quiz I was going to give you and Bradley. We need a little jingle, The Moos Room pop quiz. This was a setup hardcore.
Joe: Okay, let's do it.
Emily: I say it sets it up because here's a little hint for the pop quiz. You already said some of the magic words, Joe. Something I always try to remind people of as well, when they're thinking about their goals is, are they smart? I don't know if either of you, I'm hoping are familiar with smart goals. S-M-A-R-T you want your goals to be smart. The pop quiz for Bradley J. Heins, PhD, and for Dr. Joe Armstrong is, what are the different things that make up a smart goal, S-M-A-R-T?
Each letter stands for different word. Joe's writing them down.
Joe: This is ringing a bell, yes, it's ringing a bell. I don't know if I remember them all though.
Emily: Just throw some out let's see how you do.
Joe: Okay. Specific for S, measurable for M, A is throwing me but I think it's accountable, realistic, and then timeframe.
Bradley: Achievable.
Joe: Achievable, I thought that would be realistic. What's the A?
Emily: A is achievable or attainable, I use attainable just because I don't know.
Bradley: Google says achievable.
Emily: Oh, so Bradley was cheating.
Joe: As was expected, it's fine.
Bradley: I had no clue what it meant, I'll be honest I had no idea.
Emily: Really? Wow. All right so Joe, you did pretty good. I think you had like about four of them maybe I think.
Joe: I guess we should just go down the line, right? Specific. Tell me how do I make my goals specific?
Emily: Your goal should be specific, for my example I'm going to use a dairy farm so I apologize to our beef producers listening but sorry, I'm biased. Your goal initially might be something like we're going to grow the herd. Make it more specific and this plays into the other letters, you're going to grow it by how much or how quickly are you going to do it or that could mean anything. You could add one cow that's growing the herd so make it very specific and then tied to that, the M is for?
Joe: Measurable.
Emily: Very good. M is for measurable and that's how you can make it specific but then also have that accountability piece to it that you were getting at Joe is how do we make sure that we are actually working on these and working towards them and how can we measure progress and that's how, by making them measurable. If it is a certain percentage or a certain number you're trying to hit, you can give yourself those benchmarks along the way to do that. A?
Joe: Attainable.
Emily: Attainable.
Joe: I see I even got it wrong I had achievable.
Emily: Or if Bradley the achievable because that's [crosstalk]. Anyways A is for attainable. Are you being realistic? Are you being practical? Is it something that you can actually do? Any of us could sit here and say, "Oh, in 2021, I'm going to start milking 40 Dutch Belted cows," right but am I actually going to start a 40-cow dairy in one year? No, I'm not.
Bradley: I started milking one cow in 2020 you could do it.
Emily: Yes and you're not milking it anymore so carry on, Bradley.
Bradley: It's because my milker pump froze up.
Joe: Attainable.
Emily: Attainable is something that yes, you can achieve or get to something that is practical. I think you missed this one Joe but R is for, it's not realistic which I think is what you said. Bradley, what does Google say?
Bradley: I don't know I can't find it anymore.
Emily: Oh, what a pity. R is for relevant.
Joe: Relevant, okay.
Emily: Really getting at are you setting a goal just for the purpose of having a goal or it's something this is my goal but you know it's going to be easy to achieve and so you're just setting it so you can check it off the list? Or is it something that's relevant to your situation, something that's actually going to help your situation or improve your production, or whatever it might be? Really making sure that you are honing in on the things that are the most important and are going to have the biggest benefit.
Joe: Okay so that's relevant. Then we've already covered timeframe, right?
Emily: Yes T is timeframe or timely, just is it something that again ties into relevant, does it make sense for where you're at right now? Is it something that you can get to in if it's a short-term or long-term goal so again, thinking about that timeline piece and how long is this going to take? Does it need to be broken up into smaller goals or is it one thing that we need to do the whole thing in this set timeframe for it to be achieved? Yes, those are smart goals, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
Bradley: How many goals should we have, should we have three, should we have 50?
Emily: I think different things work for different farms, 50 sounds really overwhelming to me I know. Two, there's a difference between if it's a personal goal or a business goal et cetera. Generally, I think three to five is a really good place to be for both short and long term. Also, I think that sometimes people get caught up in this idea that these goals need to be this really huge lofty thing and that's not the case, right?
It can be something that maybe to other people will seem really simple or generic or easy but if it's something to you that you really want to improve and work on, then that's okay. Even if it's something like we have a goal that we are going to be cleaning out the pack barn or cleaning out the area where the calves are every X days or X weeks, just those simple things that day-to-day are going to improve over time your management and potentially the production and profitability on your farm.
Joe: Here's my plug for veterinarians in this episode which I haven't done it for a couple of episodes so here it is.
Emily: You guys can't see this but in Joe's screen, a hand just came in from the side with an envelope of money and Joe took it.
Joe: Took it? No.
Emily: Carry on.
Joe: With veterinarian, here's the deal for me, farmers are busy we all know that everybody's got limited time so setting goals can be a tricky deal because it's like you're trying to commit time to something that you already don't have time to do. My thing when I'm talking and working with farmers dairy, beef, doesn't matter, the role of the veterinarian in that situation in my opinion is to assess the operation as a whole and identify bottlenecks and the biggest bang for your buck, right?
Your goals in my opinion should start with low-hanging fruit. What's the easiest thing to fix that gives you the biggest bang for your buck? Sometimes that's hard to see when you're in the system, it doesn't have to be a veterinarian but I like a veterinarian in this situation for being able to comment on your entire system. Having someone from the outside come in and say, "All right, well it's something really very simple fix," that might actually have a huge impact for your farm. One that I see that continually comes up is just foot bath, so foot bath design and use it all and lameness and things like that.
If you have a properly designed foot bath, all you have to do is change the length, the depth, if it has sides or not, things like that. Relatively small investment for something you might be doing already anyway and a big improvement so things like that is where I look to. Like Emily said, it doesn't have to be anything complicated, sometimes it's as easy as this year, we're going to make a special effort that we're going to scrape out the return walkways in the middle of the milking.
Just we're going to make them less sloppy and we're going to see what it does to mastitis, like that, something very small where the investment is small but the benefit is huge. That's my plug, get your veterinarian involved, ask them to look at your system, ask them for what would they do, what would they rank because I think the big piece of this for me especially when we look at the relevant piece is time is limited so you have to create a hierarchy. That hierarchy for me starts with what can I do with the least investment but the benefit is huge.
Emily: Also I think it gets to yes it's okay to have some of that low-hanging fruit be part of your goal and because it's sometimes nice to have some things that you know you can get done if you just put in that effort to get them done. Usually, with low-hanging fruit, it's not a lot of effort and so whether it's time investment, money investment, both. Then tying it back to that stress and that mental health piece. When we achieve our goals, neurotransmitters, we get endorphins, we get serotonin and that's a whole another discussion for another day.
Those are really important things too in just our overall wellness and again, that ties back to helping relieve stress and being able to get things done. I say to people don't be afraid to go after those goals that you know can get done or that are very achievable or are that low-hanging fruit. You don't want to make goals that are things you should be doing anyway like get both milkings done every day. No, that's not a goal, that's just like standard operating procedure, right? Some of those types of things.
I know people milk different times per day and that's all fine and dandy but whatever it is, make sure it's not a part of your standard day-to-day operations and is actually something that you need to work towards.
Bradley: What about generational goals so there can be sometimes many generations on the farm, and they have different goals, or should they all have the same goals?
Emily: Bradley, you tell me. You grew up on a dairy farm, right?
Bradley: I think different generations have [crosstalk].
Emily: Just play along. You grew up on a dairy farm, right, Brad?
Bradley: Sure.
Emily: Do you think that your goals for the farm and your parent's goals for the farm were always the same? Not even goals, just ideas, vision?
Bradley: Nobody's goals are all the same. Your goals and Joel's goals and my goals are all different.
Emily: Exactly. Which is why this podcast is such a train wreck all the time.
Bradley: That's the beauty of it though. That's the beauty of it.
Emily: [laugh] It is. You're right, there's something to be said for that, for different perspectives. We run into that and also we talk about this. Farming is very family-centric, which is one of the things I really like about it. Also one of the things that makes it so challenging is you are trying to compromise between making family and emotional-oriented decisions and making business-minded decisions.
With goals too, that comes into play is that everybody views the farm differently, looks at it differently. It's okay, you want people to have different goals like you said Brad, and those different perspectives, those aren't a bad thing. This is something that I've seen people use in farm transfer situations, but I think it's applicable to just general goals. That's letting people make goals on their own. Just personally write down your goals and then get together with your siblings or your spouse and see where your goals cross over. You start on your own, you develop these goals and then how can we blend our goals? Where are there similarities that we can turn into one or where are things that maybe we can just scrap for now?
In the end, you all come together and you do prioritizing. Where the generational thing comes in, is that people that have vastly different ideas. In blending, we're putting together things that are similar, but when we get down to the nuts and bolts of it, there are going to be very different goals that target very different things. How do we prioritize? That's really what it comes down to is having that conversation with everybody and going, "Here's what's important to us. Here's what's important to you. Let's all think about these together."
Which ones again, Joe? Maybe that low-hanging fruit or those ones that we know can be biggest bang for our buck, relatively inexpensive or easy to do and can see an immediate return on and which ones should we plan for a little bit more and we still want to do them, but they're not going to be the first thing we go after. You can probably see where it's used a lot in farm transfer situations, but it's really applicable to any goal setting too, is doing that developing, blending, prioritizing.
Joe: I would also encourage people to embrace that different people on different farm, have different interests. Not everyone can feed calves every day. Not everyone likes working with calves at all. Embrace the fact that everyone has a different interest and be okay with that. Yes, every job is something that you don't want to do and you have to do anyway. That's no different for farming. If there is someone who has a goal that's specific to their interest, you might see more success by allowing them to run with it because you know they're interested, you know they're invested and they want to do it. I would definitely encourage some of that as well as you're going through this whole process that Emily's talking about.
Emily: That really helps with the accountability piece too, Joe. If people are able to, this is the thing they're really passionate about and feel very strongly about, then yes, let them be the leader. Let them be the point person on it and let them go with it. That's really important. I think Bradley and Joe, you would both agree with me that the most successful farms I see where there's multiple family members are the ones where people are able to just do the things they're interested in. I think of my own family. I have two brothers. My one brother, he is a cow person through and through. If he never had to do field work again, that would be the best day of his life.
Then I have my other brother who lives for just sitting in the tractor and whatever it might be, if he's plowing, if he's raking hay, if he is-- it doesn't matter. That's why when we were younger, they worked really well together because my one brother could just be there taking care of the cows. My other brother could take care of the field and the crop stuff. It is important that you recognize that people have those interests and let them run point on those goals and let them be the person that really steers that progress. It was really long-winded. You can cut most or all of that.
Bradley: Yes, we'll beat it in. One hour.
Emily: Philosophy hour with Emily.
Joe: I think Brad mentioned this earlier, but coming back to your goals and evaluating, did you get them done? Did you set achievable goals? Are there goals that, in retrospect, weren't as realistic as they should be? It's definitely a skill, making sure you know how to set realistic goals. At the end of the year, it's also a time to look back. No one wants to look back at 2020, but looking back at the previous year to just see what you did, did you get there, did you not? Were the things that prevented you from getting there, were they reasonable explanations for not getting to those goals or was it really just simply you didn't want to do it?
That happens all the time. There's a reason that I need to drop some weight. I didn't want to work out. I like food.
Emily: [laughs] He wanted to eat pizza.
Joe: Yes. Was there a reason that I didn't drop weight this year? Yes. Was it reasonable? No. That's what I like to come back to.
Emily: That is a good point, Joe, is remembering that you can have the best-laid plans, the best goals and there are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely, all of that but there are things that are outside of our control which 2020 proved. Also, I always remind people that along with goals should come a little bit of grace. Understand that yes, be able to give yourself that gut check and to be honest with yourself and think did we not achieve this goal because of something outside of our control or did we not achieve it? It was in our control but we just didn't do it.
What happened there? How do we rewrite that goal or reformulate that goal or how do we split it into separate goals to make it something that we can actually achieve?
Joe: For sure. This is a big conversation. It's one that's got to continue, especially with the different generations on the farm. It can't be something you just set aside and not talk about. You got to keep it up and continue to do it.
Don't be afraid to reevaluate either. We didn't really bring that up. If you get two, three months in, it's not working and you know it's not working. There's no reason to continue to do it for another nine months even though you know it's not working right now. Reevaluate, have that team meeting, even if that's just sitting down over lunch one day with everybody and discussing what to change to get to this goal and how to reevaluate it. Don't just keep banging your head against the wall. It doesn't work, usually.
Emily: Have that be a part of your goal protocol. Every quarter maybe you're going to look at it at the very least. halfway through the year. You should be looking at where you're at with things and what needs to be potentially reevaluated, like you said, Joe.
Joe: This is definitely something that I think we're very close to adding to our management discussion. Goal setting, being able to achieve it.
Emily: Oh, yes.
Joe: This is feeling very, very management-like. I think a lot of these goals that you're going to come up with your farm are going to be related to management and what we described in our episode. I think that's pretty much the basis of it. I talk about low-hanging fruit and trying to get those basics done because I think as you build those up and do the small things, you're going to run out of low-hanging fruit, which is the perfect position to be. You can start talking pretty lofty about some of your goals. I think if you can catch all that low-hanging fruit, you're going to be in a great position to move forward. All right. I think we've talked plenty. We're done with philosophy hour with Emily.
Emily: Aw.
Joe: I know, it's time to move on. If you have comments, questions, and rebuttals, please keep sending emails to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Bradley: Check out the website extension umn.edu and catch us on Facebook at UMNbeef and at UMNdairy. Catch us on Twitter @umnmoosroom. I think that's where we're going to stop the plugs because I'm sick of plugging already. That was two lines. I'm done. Thank you for listening.
Emily: Also if you're on Twitter, you should also follow UMN Farm Safety.
Joe: I knew she would do this.
Emily: I'm just saying.
Joe: All right. Thank you.
Bradley: I have an Instagram page UMNdairy.
[laughter]
Joe: All right, we're out. Thank you for listening.
Emily: Happy New Year. Bye.
Joe: Bye.
[00:29:59] [END OF AUDIO]

1