I was recently enjoying a drink
with my wife and my employers at the Ashburton Hotel; we had just finished a
fun day at the races courtesy of FarmSource and Ecolab and were contemplating
where to head for dinner.
A hand clapped down on my
shoulder and a voice boomed in my ear “Craig! Good to see you!” as is wont to
happen in a crowded pub. I turned, expressing my pleasure to see them also,
only to come face to face with a complete stranger. I’ll be the first to admit
I’m not very good with names, but I’ll usually have a nagging feeling that I should know somebody or that I’ve met
them before. Not this time.
Luckily for me the gentleman in
question had thoroughly availed himself of the hospitality at the races and was
having enough trouble remaining upright, let alone wondering why I wasn’t
introducing him as my best friend to the others at the table. He knew my name,
he knew I had booked annual leave for the next day and he inquired after my
children. It wasn’t until he lurched off to the bar that my wife pointed out
his parting farewell had been “We really should get a selfie together” that it
finally clicked; he follows me on Twitter.
The encounter got me thinking
about how much I share online. Despite the fact I’m a fairly prolific tweeter I’m
also pretty private, what I do share is generally superficial; you might see
what I’m eating or read my views on farming, you’ll see how proud I am of my
children and get treated to jokes on every topic under the sun, but you’ll
almost never read about things going badly in my life or how I’m feeling.
Plenty of people online share
extremely personal things to their followers but that’s not me, either in real
life or in the virtual world. It’s something that extends into other aspects of
my life; I like to nut things out for myself, I tend to focus inwards and I’m
reticent about asking for help. Unfortunately these are all things that can be
bad for business.
We haven’t had a flash season on
the farm this year, especially coming off the back of three record years, and the
shareholders are understandably disappointed.
Some people who know me well
online picked up that something was off, I didn’t post as often as I usually do
and I was less ready with a joke, more inclined to snap.
I sat down with the farm
consultant to review our season to date, and we pinpointed several things that
in isolation don’t mean very much, but together they add up to something; we
reared the calves ourselves instead of hiring help, we had key staff leave
unexpectedly (one to pursue true love, the other because he got an offer he
couldn’t refuse), we had trouble finding good replacement staff (we didn’t have
a full complement until Christmas)and when I did find good staff I told them what to do instead of why we do things because it was
expedient.
These things all meant I was
focusing on the wrong area, I turned in and tried to solve problems rather than
reaching out and asking for help. I didn’t share.
I didn’t focus on the single biggest driver of our production; hitting a 1600kg residual, instead I focused on trying to solve problems by myself. And it shows.
None of this means I’ll be any
more inclined to share online when things aren’t going well, that’s just not
me, but it does mean I’ve learned my lesson; that you can’t coast on previous
successes and that if support is only a phone call away you should pick up the damned
phone.
