Patio Pondering: Production Numbers, the Phantom Menace
The sun is out this Friday morning in NE Indiana, even though another Alberta Clipper is headed our way. Before we get plunged back into the cold, I’m taking a minute to enjoy the view and a hot cup of coffee.
Over the past week I’ve thought about the artificial benchmarks we place in our lives — benchmarks we convince ourselves will magically fix everything in our lives, on our farms, or in our businesses.
When I traveled and talked with pig farmers in China, everyone told me the same thing: if they could just get a 2.3 feed conversion, their farms would be profitable and their lives easier. It didn’t matter what their operation looked like, what genetics they used, or where they purchased or manufactured feed. They all said 2.3. I heard it so many times I started dreaming about 2.3 feed conversion.
I think about hog farms here in the U.S. that repeat standard feed costs or production metrics as benchmarks for profitability, hearing the same numbers in different meetings across the country. They had fallen into the same trap the Chinese farmers had — believing that some metric, shouted by someone, was the magic number, the moment their farm would finally be perfect.
Unfortunately, in every case where these farmers repeated these benchmarks, each one had no clue about their own operations. When I asked about feed delivery records, the answers were vague. They didn’t have them. When I asked about closeout records, I got wishy-washy excuses about why they didn’t have those either. When I tried to discuss feed budgets and how closely they were followed, I usually got blank stares.
These farmers believed that if they just hit that magic number, life would be great — yet they had no understanding of the realities inside their own barns. And this isn’t isolated to pig farms. The same thing happens in the business world and in our personal lives. We convince ourselves that if we could just achieve this one thing, then everything would fall into place.
What are the phantom metrics you chase in your life — the ones you fixate on but never stop to question why?