Month: November 2020

Do you think we have lost our moral compass?

From destroying the habitat of Koalas to horses participating in a race for life or death to electing politicians who are not role models for anything but how best to incite everything that is ugly in the world.

Farmer and very wise man Peter Mailler has written a very important OP-ED on the Changing Face of Democracy and invites us all to have some serious conversations

An extract

A functional and robust democracy can only exist if the electorate is well informed. We must be able to trust the government for democracy to truly work and to trust the government, it must be trustworthy.

Many politicians, parties and lobbyists are deliberately dishonest about what they have done, what they will do and what their opponents have done to influence voters.

In such a corrupted environment, there is little hope that the electorate is well enough informed for democracy to function properly. The dishonesty undermines trust in the government and breeds discontent in the electorate.

Governments develop and enforce laws that ensure business people and companies can’t engage in false or misleading behaviour for commercial gain. So why is that standard different for people, parties or interest groups engaging in false or misleading behaviour for political gain?

It is past time for truth in advertising laws that hold political actors – politicians and/or influencers – to the same advertising standard as the business world.

It should be an unambiguous, punishable and punished offence to deliberately mislead the electorate for political gain.

Beyond the lying, democracy is in crisis as election outcomes are increasingly influenced by the resources available to the contestants, as opposed to any genuine contest of ideas and issues within an electorate.

Vested interests are channeling significant resources into major parties that are likely to form government, or hold the balance of power to effectively ‘buy’ influence.

This picking of winners by vested interests reinforces the structural bias of the electoral system to larger and better-resourced parties.

It is anti-competitive in its nature.

Read the full article here

If you are like me and don’t like the way we are all being manipulated by the people with the power ( power we gave them) are using it how do we come together to design and deliver a system with integrity?

Everyone wants to be proud of the industry they work in. Yesterday I found myself embarrassed to be a farmer.

I was sad that people could feel so undervalued they would share a meme that attempts to add value to themselves by undervaluing others. 

I was sad that at leadership level we apparently aren’t having conversations about what is clearly a much bigger issue.

We are better than this.  I need help. I want to understand how we can reframe our messaging in agriculture from being locked in the Dreaded Drama Triangle to embracing The Empowerment Dynamic

I am looking forward to growing a tribe of people I can have these discussions with. I am looking forward to every agricultural organisation seeing people as its greatest resource and telling them that.

Change starts with us – lets make our People Pillar our first pillar

Before I go – how can agriculture do messaging differently. We could ask Dorie Clark  

I am currently reading Seth Godin’s book “Marketing You Cant Be Seen until you learn to See”

He gives very wise advice to people with a cause. That all important reminder that involves metaphors around starting small and growing your tribe and letting your tribe be advocates for the cause. You know the ones about not being able to boil the ocean. In his case its the difference between putting purple colouring ( Seth likes purple) in the ocean or in a swimming pool

Today I jumped in the ocean and invited everyone on LinkedIn to join the cause to fight toxic negativity in agriculture. Lets not stop at agriculture. Far too many other sectors use memes like below (sans my addition of yellow text) to feed their feeling undervalued base

When this meme ( sans my addition of yellow text) arrived by “Messenger” from some-one who was asking for advice on how to call it out, I wanted to scream. How do farmers get to a point where they feel so undervalued that we think its okay to bring the rest of the world down with us. When will we address the underlying cause that stops people realising how counterproductive this type of messaging is.

The impulse to devalue others always signals a diminished sense of self, as you must be in a devalued state to devalue. That’s why it’s so hard to put someone down when you feel really good (your value investment is high) and equally hard to build yourself up when you feel resentful. Source 

Why did I ignore Seth’s advice today. Because  I need a bigger tribe that believes in the cause. A tribe that wants everyone to thrive. Our farmers (and every sector who thinks like this) need help. They need communication skills help. We so need to learn how to frame our messaging. We so need leadership.

Some great advice in this article from Harvard Business Review. How to Thrive When Everything Feels Terrible  

Seek out positive relationships — inside and outside of work.  Research has found that de-energizing relationships — in which one person possesses an enduring, recurring set of negative judgments, feelings, and intentions toward another person — have four to seven times greater impact on an employee’s sense of thriving than energizing, positive relationships. To offset these effects, surround yourself and spend more time with energizers — the people in your life who make you smile and laugh, and lift your spirits.

You may not be able to stop the flow of negativity in your life, especially right now, but you can resist its toxic effects by making smart choices about who and what you surround yourself with, the mindset you adapt, and the information you consume. Not only will you be better off because of these choices — those around you will too.