The fundamentals of success
The GenAngus Future Leaders Program formal dinner was an evening of insights for the 2024 cohort, with presentations from several members from not only the beef industry, but the agricultural industry as a whole.
Keynote speaker for the night was Rhys Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of Align Farms and the 2022 New Zealand Zanda McDonald Award recipient.
Rhys provided a different perspective, coming from his role at the helm of a majority diary centred business. Within his presentation, Rhys touched on the Canterbury based company, the diversity of the product within the various Align businesses and the management philosophies of the company.
“With our group strategy at Align Farms, we break into three pillars as a business,” said Rhys. “Social and environmental leadership, new thought leadership and brand leadership.”
Covering what he has learned during his career, Rhys touched on his key personal learnings and his fundamental recommendations for long term success.
You get from life what you negotiate, not what you deserve – “I spent my whole life working as hard as I could because I thought, if I worked harder, opportunities were going to come my way,” said Rhys.
“Don’t get me wrong, I built a reputation. But it wasn’t until I actually understood that it was what I can negotiate that are the greater opportunities.
“I think the last five years, I’ve improved my negotiation skills. This has probably actually got me further in life than the 15 years working bloody hard. So, for me, I’m a huge believer of getting your head down, working hard, getting lots of jobs done, doing a lot of learning. But at the end of the day, use that, learn from it and take that to another level by improving your negotiation skills. It’s a real critical step.”
Respect over popularity – “In our business of a hundred odd people, it’s challenging not to try and be the most popular person, which will get you nowhere,” said Rhys. “The harsh reality is respect will always beat popularity. Your integrity is everything.
“I’m a big believer of chasing respect over popularity. It’s always great to be the most infamous person in the country and the most famous person in the country. But ultimately, if you want to challenge the status quo and continue to grow as an individual, it will always be your respect that gets you through with your integrity.”
You can learn what’s been done from within your industry, however, you can learn what could be done from outside your industry – “Every farmer is like, right, let’s go advertise into Farm Source but that’s where everyone is. It’s actually the people outside the industry that actually have the biggest impact.
“90% of the people that want to work on farms don’t know how to get in. For me I’m a big believer, if you want to go learn something new, you’ve got to get outside the industry.
“You can’t just keep going to the same places because if it’s just this group all you learn is how it’s been done in the past. If you want to learn how it could be done in the future, get as far away from the industry as you can.”
The things money can buy don’t get remembered, however, the things you can’t buy with money do – “It’s very easy to fall into a trap to try and buy love as an employer. And we’ve all been there, but a simple hello, goodbye, thanks for your day. Handshake, wink, fist pump, whatever that might be, is going to go a long way.”
“At the end of the day, you go and talk to your staff member about the pay rise you gave them 10 years ago. Good luck if they remember that, but they’ll always remember that time you said thank you for hard work or gave them a fist bump or gave them some groceries or some veggies or whatever that may be.
“It’s the simple stuff that goes a long way. So, for me, I’m always focusing on what are the things that money can’t buy. The money can’t buy experiences. People turn up to your house, cooking them a chocolate cake for their birthday, or they turn up to your house and you know that they love lamb, so you just happen to have lamb on. They love red wine, so you have red wine on the table.”
“They are the places that will take you further long term in my eyes than just saying, hey, here’s two grand, or, hey, do you want a pay rise.”
During the evening, the GenAngus group was also joined by Lynda Coppersmith, the Chief Executive Officer of NZ Young Farmers. NZ Young Farmers was founded in 1927 and is an integral part of New Zealand’s food and fibre sector. It currently has approximately 1,600 members and over 60 clubs nationwide.
Sharing about the origins of NZ Young Famers, the legacy of the organisation and the impact that it has had on New Zealand for almost 100 years, Lynda stated, “Young Farmers started out as a group of young men, who would get together for social reasons to share or to have a beer on a Thursday night,” she said.
“In our early days, we did a lot of exchanges, and these groups of young farmers would get on ships and go across to the other side of the world and look at what people were doing overseas in farming and bring their stories and their knowledge back to New Zealand. It was a really important part of growing our knowledge about what farm practices were across the world were like.
“Going forward, about another 30 years from when they started, we merged with the Country Girls Association.
“56 years ago, we started Young Farmer of the Year, which started as a radio show and knowledge quiz.
“We have seven regions in New Zealand for young farmers, and each region starts out with an open entry district level of competition. Then it goes through to a regional final.
“We run seven regional finals from February to April every year with eight regional finalists. We go from about 200 odd to 56 people, and then from those seven regions, we get our seven grand finalists. In 2000, we added two different categories to Young Farmer of the Year and now have Agri-Kids and Junior Young Farmer of the Year, which has created a whole new level of excitement for contests.
Lynda continued, “Young Farmer of the Year is New Zealand’s top agriculture contest. It is very prestigious in our sector. We have many politicians, business leaders, industry leaders, chairs of big industry organisations, all who have come through the Young Farmers Network as members, and the majority of them have all competed at some stage.
“With the Agri-Kids and the Junior Young Farmers, we see them now coming back year after year and competing in the next level. What we’re starting to see now with our Young Farmers is, some of them have competed in the Agri-Kids, some of them have been in the Junior Young Farmer over the years and they are passionate and connected to the sector because of that.
“They want to win, they want to succeed,” she said. “Perhaps without that drive and that focus, they might have got strapped elsewhere. It becomes very prestigious and something they get very passionate about.”
Newly appointed President of Angus Australia Sinclair Munro joined the evening’s festivities, and addressed the group about his fundamentals to success in business and drew on his learnings from the required reading of Legacy by James Kerr.
“Number one which I’ve done from an early age because I didn’t really have much ability with sport and stuff, was I trained to win. I trained so hard. I wanted to ride my horse, and I wasn’t very good at that, but I trained it. I trained to win rugby. I was the smallest guy in my whole school, and I ended up being in the A’s rugby team. I think in your life you need to just train because if you train harder than everyone else, work harder than everyone else, the luck will come.
“I think you learn more working for other people than yourself. If you want to have a successful business, the most important thing you can do is go out and sweep the sheds. Do the hard jobs and work for someone else, because you need to feel like you’re an employee. Then, when you become an employer, you need to remember what it feels like to be an employee and continue to do those basic jobs.
“We had to develop an animal that the customers want and that would work in our environment. We understood the market and we learned, so we’ve survived financially. But the big thing in life is that it’s pretty short, so you need to make continual improvements. Every day, you might not think that you’re doing much, but you only have to make a small thing every day. Before you know it, you’re going to be very old, but those improvements are going to be very big.
He shared, “In our business, in our personal life and in our family, there’s four values that we maintain. The most important one is integrity. Integrity with your customers, with your suppliers and with your employees.
“Another one is commitment. Commitment to what we do, whatever it is. We commit to our customers, to our genetic changes, to Angus Australia and to Angus as a breed.
“Next is reliability. Personally, you need to be reliable to your friends, and you need to be reliable in your business to your customers, to your suppliers, and to everyone around you. And fourth, innovation is a core value. You need to be innovative the whole time. If you’re not innovative, you won’t change, and you won’t survive.
“In the book, Legacy, it said to follow the spearhead. You need to fly together as a group. It’s really important in our organisation, Angus Australia. We need to be a group with our members and our staff.
“Quite crudely is that there are no dickheads,” said Sinclair. “It’s a crude term, but you need to identify how to not take them on, and that you need to just move without them. If they’re going to be destructive, keep a spearhead. The other thing is to build this spearhead is you need to have the right people on the bus.”
Sinclair concluded with, “As you get older, you develop within yourself. But you need at some stage to pass the ball. It’s really important, and that’s probably the hardest thing to do, is to identify the right people, and to pass the ball.”
Summarising the achievements of those selected for the program, Angus Australia CEO Scott Wright said, “When you look around the room, it’s a room filled with quality people that care about the next generation and we thank you for your part in this.
“Thank you to Achmea Australia for your sponsorship, allowing us to do so much more than we could otherwise. It’s allowed our program to reach for the stars. We thank you for the long-term help and assistance, it’s been a great partnership that we hope can keep going forward.”
He continued, “This year, we had something in order of 43 people that applied. It was really heartening to read each of the applications. Each time we have another cohort of people come along, it’s harder and harder to get on the course.
“You should be very proud of yourselves to be selected. If this is the calibre of people that are coming through agriculture, then we’ve got something really to look forward to.”
To conclude the speakers for the evening, Achmea Australia CEO Emma Thomas made an address to the group on behalf of the specialist farm insurer that partners with Angus Australia to bring GenAngus to life.
“I really am privileged to be part of this GenAngus program, seeing the difference that it makes in people’s lives,” she said. “Hearing the panellists tonight and the keynote speaker was really inspiring.
“When you sign up to a program like this, it’s about lifetime learning. You never stop learning and it doesn’t matter what role you have and what stage and age you are at in your career. It’s these opportunities that are just second to none.”
Feature Image: Scott Wright, Nancy Crawshaw & Rhys Roberts
– Cheyne Twist, Senior Marketing and Communications Officer
