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Leading Digital Transformation in Agriculture with Teddy Bekele
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Technology in agriculture isn't about the most expensive tractors — it's about solving real problems.
In this episode of the Cultivating Leaders Podcast, Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer at Land O’Lakes, explores the powerful intersection of agriculture, technology, and leadership. Teddy offers insight on what it takes to lead meaningful change in a tradition-rich industry.
He opens up about:
- Changing Team Organizations Structure: restructuring teams for better business integration
- Adopting Digital Change in Ag: farmers, the original entrepreneurs, adopt innovations when there's clear, demonstrable value
- Transformative Ideas for the Future of Ag: his bold vision for the future includes circularity and personalized nutrition
Teddy challenges leaders to rethink risk, embrace innovation, and lead with purpose.
Connect with Teddy
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About The Cultivating Leaders Podcast
Real stories. Practical advice. Tangible growth. Join The Cultivating Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Agriculture Future of America, as we explore what it takes to lead in food, agriculture, and beyond. Whether you’re just starting out or leading at the highest level, this podcast is your go-to resource for leadership that matters. Listen now and start cultivating your leadership journey.
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Agriculture in a lot of cases gets viewed as this slow to move, non-technologically advanced industry, and it couldn't be further from the truth. I think we do some really interesting things.
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to the Cultivating Leaders podcast, where we get inside the minds of changemakers to harvest great ideas and leadership lessons that help you grow as a difference maker in food and agriculture. I'm your host and Curiosity Captain, Nicole Ersing.
00:00:30
Speaker
Today we have with us Teddy Bichelli. He is a true innovator at the intersection of agriculture and technology. He serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Land O'Lakes, where he is leading the charge to bring cutting edge innovation to agriculture and business.
00:00:43
Speaker
With a background in engineering and a passion for digital transformation, te Teddy is leading efforts to modernize the agriculture industry through data, connectivity, and bold strategic tools. Under his leadership, Land O'Lakes isn't just thinking about the next harvest, they're planning for the next 100 years.
00:00:59
Speaker
Teddy, welcome to the pod. What did I miss from your bio? Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. I'm i'm really honored and really excited about our conversation. What did you miss from my bio? you know, kind of based on my background, I think two little hobbies that I have that you'd find interesting. One is I'm really into coffee and have been more in the last few years, even gone as far as roasting it, although I've realized I'm not a good roaster, but I do like to drink really good coffee around the world. So that's one little fact.
00:01:25
Speaker
The other one, I like to make pizzas. That's the Italian side. So that's something I've been perfecting over the last year or so. And I think we've got a spot where it's an acceptable Italian pizza. So Those are the two things that would round out who I am.
00:01:40
Speaker
So fun. Okay. So Teddy is also a true foodie. So what would you recommend, Teddy? What is the best coffee you've had? And what is the pizza you make the best? Okay. So the best coffee, I'll be biased. i I was born in Ethiopia and I still, maybe in the DNA, but it still speaks to me as the Ethiopian coffee.
00:01:57
Speaker
has that floral flavor. So I really, I really like that. Although I have really become a big fan of some Colombian coffees as well. ah Pizza, you have to make the margarita pizza. If you don't know how to make that, then everything else falls apart from there. So got to have the basics right. So that's the one I've been working on.
00:02:13
Speaker
And of course, you add the toppings and only tastes better. Margarita is one of my favorites. So I love that that was your answer. So question, I'm not a coffee drinker, but it is my husband's current hyper focus hobby is what I would say.
00:02:26
Speaker
So how do you make your coffee? Are you like a pour over? Are you a French press? Like what's your what's your method of actually making the coffee? All right. So i see your husband is into it. So yes, pour overs are my thing right now.
00:02:39
Speaker
And I have a whole method of of making that. And that's really how you can bring out the best flavor of the coffee, which by the way, when you start doing pour overs, you also realize how bad of a roaster you are because it is an art. It's like farming. It is an art. there is There is the scientific methods that go behind it, but it really is more the art that you bring to it and knowing how this bean should be roasted.
00:02:59
Speaker
So pour over, I think brings the best out of that. But that said, depending on how you roast it I think espressos are great as well. So I love espressos with a little bit of milk in it. That's also another favorite of mine. Well, I appreciate the expertise.
00:03:11
Speaker
Okay, so you hinted at it a little bit, but you have a really interesting background. Tell us about your journey, where you started, and how it got you to where you are today. Yes. So I was born in Ethiopia, mid-70s.
00:03:24
Speaker
And my father at the time farmed about 400 acres of corn, wheat, and cotton. Now he was the 12th of 12 brothers. So he was the last kid. So as my grandfather passed his land over to his children, he was the one that was, he was but not just him, but he was definitely not getting anything. He was going to probably be working one of his brother's farms.
00:03:46
Speaker
So he decided instead of doing all that to go to agronomy school and learn to be an agronomist. And when they graduated college, there was a program that the government had offered at the time where they would give you 10 acres.
00:03:59
Speaker
and you learn your trade, and then you go around and teach other farmers. You get to keep half the harvest from that 10 acres, and then you can grow it from there if you'd like to And that's exactly what he did to grow to 400 acres, gave the land back at one point and did his own thing. So he was very much an entrepreneur, loved farming, agronomist. So that's kind of the environment I grew up in.
00:04:18
Speaker
Well, about late seventies, a dictator took over the country and nationalized the land. So he just took it away from the farmers overnight. And so my father who had sort of acquired the land,
00:04:29
Speaker
found himself in a position where he had no land, but he loved agriculture. That's what he grew up in. So then he got into buying crop inputs, particularly crop protection from Europe, and then eventually agricultural machinery, and then selling it into Eastern Africa. So Ethiopia was troubled for a little while. So he focused on Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, but, and then Ethiopia again.
00:04:51
Speaker
And so he, he kept doing that. And, but at the time the political situation got bad. So we moved from Ethiopia to Italy. So his base was out of Italy. selling into Eastern Africa. And then at some point, the corruption bill between the African corruption and the European bureaucracy, he just decided, I just want to come work in the United States where like we'll have better sort of relationships, less money moving from one person to another under the table and all that. And so in the mid-90s, we decided to make the move here.
00:05:20
Speaker
And we moved to North Carolina because Bayer's headquarters was in North Carolina at the time, and while in the Research Triangle Park. So I finished out my high school there. i had no desire to get into agriculture, just watching everything that happened.
00:05:31
Speaker
But I went to school for mechanical engineering and really wanted to build the cars. And so went through school and then did a couple of internships, one in power generation and really loved engineering. But I just like there was something that said, this is really not like my calling. I love learning about it.
00:05:49
Speaker
And but then dot com happened, like, you know, like late ninety s early 2000s. The internet came. i really got fascinated by that. i got a minor in information systems and then moved over to at least took ah took some positions that would rotate me around, but give me an opportunity to work in the technology realm. And that's when I knew like, okay, I do love this. I do love the application of technology.
00:06:13
Speaker
So I went to work for a company called Ingersoll Rand that had the opportunity to jump from being sort of that mechanical engineering background to be more of a technologist. And I so much grew up in technology there till this software opportunity at Land O'Lakes came up about 12 years ago.
00:06:27
Speaker
Again, I remember at the time them talking about Land O'Lakes being not just a butter company, but a big agricultural company. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's not really what I want to get into. I stayed away from that for so long, but there was something about agriculture that calls home to you.
00:06:44
Speaker
love the fact that you can apply some of the newer things you've learned and bring them back to agriculture. so took a leap of faith, took this position at Land O'Lakes, and it's been a great journey over the last 12 years.
00:06:55
Speaker
And one thing led to another, and here I am as a chief technology officer at Land O'Lakes. I love that. I feel like so many people have that as part of their story, whether you grew up in agriculture or not, like resisting, like, oh, no, this isn't what I'm going to do. No, this isn't where I want to end up. And then it reels you back reels you back in.
00:07:13
Speaker
It absolutely does. I remember coming for this interview And it really was more of a, it was through a connection that the whole thing came about. And I did it as a almost like as a favor to that person and say, okay, yes, I will come to Minneapolis. We will do the interview.
00:07:28
Speaker
And my wife and I almost took it as a hey, maybe we'll just do a little vacation for the two of us, go to Minneapolis for the weekend and come back. And and so we did, but I remember ah coming home from the interview and she looked at my face and said, I thought we were here for vacation. i didn't think we' were going to move here. you know And I just tell her like,
00:07:47
Speaker
There's something about ag. I don't understand what it is, but it just brings you back in. And there's just a coming home thing. And there's a mission to the work, you know, or there's purpose to the work. And we're excited about it. And the the people I talk to are all excited about it and authentic and genuine. And I'm like, you don't find that in many other places. So it's it's almost as I kept talking about it. I kept went from, oh, my God, am am i really going to do this to getting excited about it And that's when, I mean, she even said, okay, yeah you're too excited about this, not to be able to take advantage of the opportunity.
00:08:18
Speaker
Oh, so cool. There's something very special about agriculture. So tell me, Chief Technology Officer at Land O'Lakes, what does that mean? What do you do? Yes. So spend a lot of time with a lot of people.
00:08:32
Speaker
That would be the simplest answer. No, my job really kind of breaks up into four areas. So there is the core technology of the organization that runs our company. So we're talking, you know, the servers, the data centers, the help desk, the yeah ERP applications and all that. So we have a big team that supports our company, keeps the company running every day. We make investments in different areas and get better as the technology improves.
00:08:55
Speaker
So that's one big portion. The second portion is that information security. So that's around the cybersecurity and privacy. So have a chief information security officer on my staff and we make sure this place is protected. We try to do the basics really well and make sure that we not only help our organization, but also the larger cooperative system that's associated with land-a-legs. That in itself has a purpose and and and we feel really proud that we're able to help out there.
00:09:19
Speaker
Third part of the job is around this concept of digital transformation. And this is where the area gets interesting for me. How do we use emerging and existing technology to be able to transform our business? so Think about the normal business model we have in place. How do we do it maybe the same way, but using technology or maybe differently using new technology that didn't exist five years ago.
00:09:42
Speaker
And so I spent a lot of time with our business leaders to try to figure out what that's going to be and how do we participate in this new market. And then the last part of the job is one that was always part of sort of underlying everything, but it's really gotten to more of next level pace with the whole explosion of artificial intelligence.
00:10:00
Speaker
Again, been working advanced analytics. That's what we used to call it 10 years ago, using statistical models, machine learning models to be able to make a matter of decisions, building interesting insights.
00:10:10
Speaker
But of course, with the democratization of Chad GPT in November of 2022, these large language models are now on the scene. It's available to everybody and really has opened everybody's eyes to, oh my God, we could do so much more with with AI.
00:10:25
Speaker
And so that's another area that I'm kind of trying to shepherd a little bit. Now, I'm not pushing for any one specific thing. It's more like, how do we educate our organization, get them ready, get people to be more tech savvy than they are today, understand that AI is not really all that scary once you start to embrace it, and really try to rethink your job using some of these new capabilities that are available. And it's moving at such a fast pace that even just keeping up with all the latest and greatest is really hard and trying to figure out what is like hype versus what's real. and's i feel like that's every day's job. So that's the job in essence, kind of covers all the the main areas. But like I said, at the end of the day, is serving the people on my team, getting them to bring out the best of themselves, making sure they're on top of their game, and they can also speak to our partners in the other functions and businesses and really kind of bringing them together and see how we can bring technology to really deliver new capabilities.
00:11:18
Speaker
What you just said, Teddy, has a million questions running through my head. Let's start with with people in agriculture. We can be really slow to adapt technologies. We're kind of laggards sometimes, not not all the time, but sometimes.
00:11:30
Speaker
So how do you, Orlando Lakes as a whole, deal with that challenge that comes with, I think, working specifically in agriculture where I think... From especially a corporate side, there is so much access to what is coming or what's available or what we can do right now.
00:11:45
Speaker
But transferring that to actually on the farm technology can be challenging. How do tackle that? You know first six years before taking this role as chief technology officer, actually worked in our Winfield United group. and And we did a lot of interesting things using technology, whether it's remote sensing and satellite images or crop models, which had a flavor of AI into it.
00:12:06
Speaker
and try to develop some tools that we brought to a lot of the farmers that are in our cooperative system. And you know one thing I found at that time was that farmers are actually entrepreneurs, and they're not really all that slow to adopt.
00:12:19
Speaker
What they are is very cautious about making the wrong move. It's a misconception a little bit. like They are the original entrepreneurs. they they they They always are looking for the next greatest thing that's going to come, but it cannot be at the expense of not being around the following year.
00:12:33
Speaker
And, you know, the whole, you want to bet the farm on this, like became really just the same for me. Like it it was real. Like if I make the wrong move as a, as an owner of this farm that has been handed to me from the last six generations, like, I don't want to be the one who like screwed it all up because I i made a careless bet.
00:12:51
Speaker
And so what they're looking for is how do I know like what to adopt and particularly even better when to adopt it. So show me where the value is and, If there's an immediate return, it's a no-brainer to do.
00:13:04
Speaker
If it's more of a longer-term bet, well, how do we start slow, ah prove it out, and then see if that's worth pursuing? Now, the other part that's interesting in that is that especially if you're in row crops, right, which is predominantly what we deal with, you only get so many chances because you only get to plant the crop once a year on that field.
00:13:22
Speaker
So you might try something with a new technology or a new capability or a new biological as an example, and you want to see, okay, let's try it on maybe half a field or one field or ah just a strip, and then we'll see how well it did, this product or this technology or this this new thing we just deployed, and then we'll see if we make a decision to go broader next year. Well,
00:13:40
Speaker
one year is not the same as the next year. So this year might be really wet, like the nutrients may not be sticking into the soil. And then the next year is the complete opposite. And so now the thing we're trying, it's not a controlled experiment. It's a little bit dealing with the wild environment and everything else that goes along with it. But it was really hard to compare, right? And so this is where you get stuck as far as making like big bets, big, bold bets and trying it.
00:14:02
Speaker
So to your question on how do you overcome that? I mean, you just have to do a lot of small experiments. So As a cooperative for Land of Lakes, what we try to do is can we do those experiments on behalf of the farmers beforehand and then make it tangible for them? Can we actually show them the output and then tell them where things worked or didn't work or we thought it would work, but because of the sort of following circumstance, it didn't. But you do this in like small steps and we have some research b plots called answer plots where we do some of that.
00:14:29
Speaker
Some of that we try to get to some of the farmers that are more willing to to place a bet to try to do that. And if you do some of these small, then you start to see the the value, right? And maybe it didn't work in one area, but it did in five others.
00:14:41
Speaker
So therefore, maybe it's that one area that quite things didn't quite line up. And so you just do these small experiments and then fail fast and then see how we can quickly get to the next year and say, okay, now maybe this is time to go a little bit bigger. So again, it's not that farmers are not willing to adopt. It's just a matter of like, we just got to figure out the right mechanism to trial and error and fix and adopt and adapt.
00:15:05
Speaker
And then go from there. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you think about farmers and as entrepreneurs, they will adopt anything that has a positive impact on their bottom line. It's just they need to see the proof is in the pudding, but especially if they apply it across an entire farm.
00:15:18
Speaker
that's ah That's exactly right. That's exactly right. so And and ah and ah you know there then there are some farmers that do some phenomenal things that are take bigger bets, but that's okay. like I mean, it's fun to see that. Yeah, it depends on your comfortability with risk.
00:15:30
Speaker
And I think if you are in agriculture, whether it's crop or livestock production, you are comfortable with a high level of risk, but you got to be able to to manage that risk, right? And part of that is what do you decide to do that's new versus tried and true?
00:15:43
Speaker
that's That's exactly right. And then when you look at, you know, like corporation, like especially a publicly tried to corporation taking big bets and making investments, I mean, this is where a a farm is a business.
00:15:54
Speaker
but it's also most times a family business. And again, something handed from one generation to the next. So you have a different sense of risk profile compared to an organization that might be borrowing money, you know trying this thing out. And if it doesn't, that's okay. We move on because we we can take the losses. Whereas, you knowm like well, our family livelihood is on this on the line here. We can't just be messing around. So I think that that also adds a sense of like little more ah let's let's let's not go all out. Let's just make sure we prove this really this thing out before we we do anything crazy.
00:16:27
Speaker
Yeah. I like the parallel to a family business. And I think those people in agriculture who are listening obviously get that. But if you compare it to other family businesses that you might see in your community, right? Like a locally family-owned restaurant or mom-and-pop shop of some kind, of course, you have seen technology evolve, right?
00:16:44
Speaker
That like your favorite restaurant, they probably have the iPad for hosting and seating and that kind of thing, or they can do tap-to-pay. but you don't see them evolve in technology quite as fast as like a Walmart or, you know, a large corporation. The visual for me made it really easy to think about where can you apply some of this new stuff, but where do you wait?
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's a that's that's a great example. One to two restaurants, family owned business is not going to all of a sudden just install these like, you know, the walk up machine where you can like tap the screen. and They're not gonna do what McDonald's is doing. Yeah, like McDonald's can afford to like across all their stores they try it in like 10 or 15 stores, see how it goes.
00:17:22
Speaker
And then they, you know, like kind of grow it from there. You know, if you have one restaurant, like I'm i'm not going to put all the savings that we've accumulated and to see this thing. And is it going to work? Is it not going to work? People adopt it. Would they like it? Not like it. So, you know, you just have to go with things that make sense.
00:17:38
Speaker
But a lot of those restaurants are going to be very entrepreneurial in nature. Like how can they stand up compared to why would you come here versus going to McDonald's? So they will do some interesting things. It just may not be those big bets that, and You might see some some um some nationals do. yeah Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:51
Speaker
Okay, so the other question I have around technology. In an industry that's so rooted in tradition, and I feel like very people-focused, where is the humanity in the balance of technology can help us do things and it can help us work easier, but where do you find that balance between human and tech?
00:18:09
Speaker
So I'll go back to this concept of when I talk about digital transformation, right? You know, if you took look at those two words, digital and transformation, and in my world, the digital part is the easy part. Meaning, let's go find something crazy like blockchain or whatever, and let's build this application. Boom, like that's that part's easy. Now, how do you incorporate that into real business and make get people to adopt it every single day and it becomes a thing that they use?
00:18:32
Speaker
That is the transformation side of things. And that is the much harder part. And really, if you go back to what you just asked me, The digital is the technology or whatever the new widget is. And then the transformation is the people side of things. So for something to be successful, those two things have to come together.
00:18:50
Speaker
The people have to embrace it. They have to see why this thing matters to them. How is it going to make their lives better? But at the same time, is this going to be something that's going to destroy who I am? Or is it going to take away my ability to make a decision? And so it can't be that. And that's where things become a little bit crazy at times. So The key is to find the right balance.
00:19:11
Speaker
First of all, we always want the human to be in control, the human making the decision. And they're looking at the technology to be the thing that enables you to even go faster or help you make a better decision, right? So you're still making the decision, you still are in charge, but maybe the technology is now helping you do that, right?
00:19:29
Speaker
Basic, simple thing. I mean, we used to be able to connect with people writing letters and then, you know, and then at some point we did faxes and then now we got phones, right? And the phones was easy, but like we had to go to a pay phone and stop and call somebody. And then there were pagers.
00:19:44
Speaker
And all of a sudden now we have cell phones and we can not only make phone calls, but we could do FaceTime and we could, you know, like we can look at each other while we're were're speaking. And I know where there's there's companies pushing the envelope on that as well.
00:19:56
Speaker
But, you know, those are the types of things where it hasn't taken like like the human connection is still there. If anything, there's probably more human connection now than there were before. Right. I can, you know, my mother lives in North Carolina.
00:20:08
Speaker
And, you know, if we are back to the old pay phone type days or the phone in the house, you know, we probably would connect once a month maybe. But now I'm able to talk to her multiple times in a week at any given time because my cell phone is always with me.
00:20:21
Speaker
I can even see her, you know, and she has better access to me. There's no leaving a message and getting back to you two days later. But that now is i'm I'm in control of that. Right. So those are the types of things that I think are the technologies and enabler in that case, it's really helping us be able to do more, connect with more people, bring more of the human nature out of us, the the kindness out of us. And I really, i really do believe that I am an optimist on the technology side.
00:20:45
Speaker
And I actually do think artificial intelligence is going to be one of those technologies that actually will help us be more human in the future. Again, adopted correctly, right, and deployed correctly. And we have to be the ones in charge of deploying it. And that's why I say,
00:21:00
Speaker
you know, embrace technology, you know, don't shy away from it. Because the more we understand it the better we can leverage it for good things. Yeah. It's a tool just like anything else, right? Like if I'm doing a home improvement project, which which is typically when the ERC household buys more tools, but there's always a purpose for it. And sometimes we have to learn how to use it.
00:21:21
Speaker
I think exactly what you just illustrated with our phones, right? Like it's helped us be more connected, but we also are in control and have to learn how to use it best in different applications. So it sounds like that's what you're saying about AI as well.
00:21:34
Speaker
Absolutely. And I mean, I might even say something that's a little bit controversial, most most companies may not agree with, but, you know, even doing in in sort of the typical work environment, doing a performance review, I really like using artificial intelligence to do a performance review. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a hot take. Tell me more about that. So you're like, okay, wait, wait, are we supposed to be doing that or not? Like, I thought we were not supposed to do that. You know, here's the thing.
00:21:57
Speaker
I'm an okay writer. I'm not the best writer in the world. And I do performance reviews. But I think, you know, For me, in the past, performance reviews, like, okay, we got to do them. It's once a year, et cetera.
00:22:07
Speaker
But, you know, when you think back and if you're not the one doing the review and you're the one receiving the review, like the review matters to you. You want to hear what your leader thinks about you and how you're doing and what are the things that should be doing better and not.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I want to spend more time thinking about, what to say to this person rather than figuring out how I should say it. And I get writer's block a lot of times and I'm sitting there trying to wait, if I write, are they gonna think of it this way? Oh no, I don't i don't mean that. like and i And I spend so much time evaluating my writing and I spend less time in actually what I'm trying to say.
00:22:39
Speaker
So what a lot of the large language models that you know do it correctly with the tools you have that are your your technology organization told you to use. I have that disclaimer, just go out to chat GPT and like, oh, let's me put it all the dirty air or the dirty laundry. do not do that. Right. But, you know, with the tools given, I think it makes a lot of sense because now all of a sudden I'm, you know, i'm I'm talking to the model and I'm like, hey, here's the person, here's the background, here's the things they've done really well. And I really want to make sure that they feel good about what they accomplished here.
00:23:09
Speaker
And then from a development standpoint, man, if they could do these couple of things, I think they would really rock it and take it to the next. So I just, I almost just probably just dump my brain into it. it starts to write it up for me and I'm not done there. and if we stop If you stop there and you look at it an efficiency or productivity tool, meaning I used to take two hours to do this, I just did it in 10 minutes, I don't think that's good use of the technology tool. It can do it and you'd have ah an average to sub-average review.
00:23:34
Speaker
But if you take the two hours that you took before and now you are redoing this thing, you can read the whole thing and go, no, that doesn't sound exactly right. I really want to say this. I don't want this to be perceived this way.
00:23:45
Speaker
And now I'm bringing more of my human self. Now I'm starting to think like, well, this is how I said it, but how are they going to receive it? Like, what if I was in their shoes? Like, and then I can even ask the model, what, if I wrote this to you, what would you assume from this?
00:23:59
Speaker
Right. And you get into those types of things. And my gosh, the, the, the type of review you put at the end, they almost become close to a masterpiece. And you've communicated so much more about exactly how you felt.
00:24:10
Speaker
Couldn't really express in words before in the right way. and i And so I think that's a simple example, but one where something like an AI is not going to replace you, but it will make you that much better going forward.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yes. I love that you used that example, Teddy, because I think so many people are hesitant to use it or they don't think about using it in some of those applications. So, for example, there's a young lady that I coach and we were talking earlier today actually about like some harsh feedback that she has to give to someone that she reports to. And she was like, I don't know how to explain this to this executive.
00:24:44
Speaker
And I was like, one of the things you can do, she was taking notes as I was like, here's some of the things that I would say. But I was like, going to go into your AI tool and say, here's what I want to communicate. Now use that as a prompt, right? Like how would you communicate this to an executive clearly, respectfully, all that. And it can help.
00:25:01
Speaker
i don't want to say give you a script, but at least give you an idea. and it can take the emotion out of it, right? Like some of these conversations can be heavy of you've either got to communicate hard feedback or,
00:25:11
Speaker
It's uncomfortable or heck you're frustrated. And how do I communicate that in a way that's going to be well-received? I love the idea of using AI as a tool to help you communicate in a way that lands well um and doesn't hurt other people, but makes you able to express yourself effectively. That's exactly right. Now if you take it to the next level, you can even finish it, or let's say you're going to actually verbally communicate, not not just written, right? it can help you with your speaking point, to talking points and all that and get you prepared.
00:25:40
Speaker
but you can actually use it to critique yourself. That enters a whole new era of the AI critiquing you, and you could do it by voice or you could do it written. You can tell it, be a harsh reviewer or whatever, and starts to push back. Now, you know if I said, Nicole, can you critique me? You're going to go, okay, well, should I say this? Should I not say that?
00:25:56
Speaker
This is the good part of the AI doesn't have feelings, it doesn't care. it will give it to you. And then, but at the end of the day, it's it's less intimidating for us to do it and say, it will make you that much better. So It's for us to learn how to actually bring the human element into all this. and So that's why I think there's really a possibility for all this technology to make us more human.
00:26:13
Speaker
But again, it's in that like example of like, well, if we use it for efficiency and we just do you know half the quality of the work in a quarter of the time and that's what we're looking for, yes, that will not be great for the future. So yes.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah. All about how you use it. And I like that, how to how you bring the human side to it or how how it can make us, honestly, this is going to sound crazy, but AI can make us human even better is kind of what we just talked about. Exactly right. I am curious, looking to the future, do you have any big, bold bets from a technology standpoint as we look at agriculture?
00:26:43
Speaker
As we look at agriculture, Yes, I do. Well, there's two concepts. There's two big concepts. I know you want one, but I but i really want to communicate the two. One is this concept of circularity. I really think we should embrace it. and And I'll give you an example for that. Like I went to visit a dairy producer few years ago, and this gentleman in Pennsylvania just has a great operation. the parlor is located a little bit up on a hill.
00:27:05
Speaker
They have like these tunnels built into the into the hill itself. So the manure gets shoveled into like these the little holes built into the tunnels and it goes to a ah manure pit. And then from there, they take the manure and they also bring in waste from a potato chip company.
00:27:18
Speaker
And then all of that goes into a ah digester that now you know is kind of taking all that, all the output out. And then it separates the liquids from the solids and the gases. And then the gases, they go generate energy from it. The liquids going to be used for fertility. And then the solids are used. He had me touch it. And now, you know, you get a little bit like, should I be touching this? It's not But it is it is just really rich soil.
00:27:42
Speaker
And it doesn't feel like it came from manure, which really helps us understand sort of the whole ecosystem of life. But he uses it for bedding for the cows. And it's super soft. At the same time, he's like, I could be selling this for potting and flowers and all that. But he's like, and that would be a really good business. But he's like, i actually need to more for the bedding for the cows.
00:27:59
Speaker
And then the the the natural gases that are used back into the generator, they actually produce enough energy to sustain their whole operation. And they actually sell some of it back to the grid.
00:28:10
Speaker
So you've got this whole thing going where like it's all connected and it's reusing what we have and and actually being even in a better financial spot than they were kind of when before they started. So I love that concept.
00:28:23
Speaker
Like I would love to see more of agriculture do that. Right. And we would get out of this, you know, is this the right thing to do? Not right thing to do. Are we, are we polluting, not polluting all that? Like, no, no, there's a way to actually make all this win. And if we can,
00:28:36
Speaker
find this idea of like circularity, I think that would be super exciting. So that's one thing I would like to see more and more happen in agriculture. The second side is actually tied to that is not that I have a lot of spare time, but I really want to get into a field that I knew nothing about and see how different fields connect with one another. So i'm actually on the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.
00:28:56
Speaker
Like that is way different than what I do day, right? It's a healthcare, it's a health plan. ah insurance business, et cetera. But one of the things I got to see is like, you know, so like one of the things insurance companies try to do is obviously people get sick.
00:29:08
Speaker
there's There's claims, claims come in, they approve most of the claims and then they only deny when they don't think the right service was offered or it's not the right cure for the thing, the person, the patient's having issues with.
00:29:19
Speaker
But, you know, one of the discussions we need to have more of is how do we actually use food as medicine? Like how do we create nutritious food and And again, everybody's DNA is different. So people need different things. so it its So this is when you say big, bold idea, this is not something that happens immediately.
00:29:36
Speaker
But can we grow food, you know, that eventually can be tailored for any one person to ingest that will actually improve their their health, right? So eating the right things that fit your criteria.
00:29:51
Speaker
So again, this is not about vegetarians, vegans, you know, flexitarian, all that mess is like, no no, it's about like, Some bodies ingest things better than others, right? So my brother a diabetic for him. Sugar is a no, no. In a lot of cases, I tend to have would be more on the high blood pressure side.
00:30:08
Speaker
So for me, salt is the opposite. So you can't give us the same meal and go, okay, you guys eat this, you both be healthy. Like, like it's not right. So each of us has to be tailored. So I think if we can actually grow food that kind of starts to fit individual criterias, that would be, that would be something magical. and I think it's, it can be done. So you kind of now are using Instead of coming up with some other medicine, like food actually could be your medicine.
00:30:31
Speaker
And I think that resonates with with most of us anyhow. Totally interesting. But that would be another big dream that think would be awesome to achieve in the decades to come. I like and I think we are starting to see some of that, obviously, like in animal agriculture, right? From a like, okay, how do we feed and treat these animals different? I'm not even going to say animal agriculture. We can see it in pet health too, of like the DNA tests that are popping up and what the health markers are for your pet and then how you treat them differently or different food that you give them.
00:30:58
Speaker
And of course, you see it in health trends and in humans too, but to think it not necessarily a preference thing, but a a health piece that's really cool. Yeah. And in you're spot on as far as the animals is the place to start, right?
00:31:12
Speaker
And we can learn a lot there. Again, it kind of, it's it's on this mission. We're going to feed the world. You know, we want to make sure nobody goes hungry, but now he kind of make it little more sophisticated. Not only they don't go hungry, but they actually eat what their body wants them to inject and they live a healthy life. And that could apply to animals, could apply to plants really, which we do that quite a bit. And of course the humans.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's not just about calories, which I think we still we still need that in parts of the world, right? Of like, how do we produce the calories needed, but how do we produce the right kind of calories? That is a fun way to think about the future of food, Teddy.
00:31:45
Speaker
Okay. So as someone who is a big thinker and an innovator and a change maker, where do you get your ideas from? What advice do you have for people who want to elevate themselves to the level of leadership and visionary that you're at?
00:31:58
Speaker
Yeah. So i would not consider myself a big idea ideator, let's call it that. That's not, that's not one of my strengths. I do have crazy ideas, but these really are just crazy. lot of the good ideas, it comes from listening to other people.
00:32:11
Speaker
Some cases it's straight up. They do have a really good idea and we should go after that. In some cases they have a making of an idea, but it just needs to be combined with something else. And in other cases, they may not even know that they have the idea, but they say something that goes, you know what, if you could take that and combine it with this other thing,
00:32:29
Speaker
and then develop this, then you may have something really interesting going. So I, like I guess I don't come up with big ideas. One of my strengths has always been the idea of like organizing and editing.
00:32:40
Speaker
Right. So like, again, I don't write very well, but you give me something that somebody's written with a couple other things and create the puzzle to create something good. That actually has always been something decent. So a lot of it comes from listening and asking a lot of questions, right? Like when you just ask some people questions, get them to think sort of broadly,
00:32:59
Speaker
And once they get there and give them the opportunity to then sort of not be constrained, they may have some really, really interesting ideas. And then how do you put those things together? and then of course, you know, i used to have a good mentor that would say, you know, like a good strategy without the execution is hallucination. I don't know if it's an Edison quote or something like that, but yes, like then you got to execute it.
00:33:20
Speaker
It doesn't matter how good the idea might be. If you actually can't bring it to life and execute it properly, it's it's still nothing at the end of the day. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's good advice. Also, unsolicited advertisement right here for a podcast, for for our podcast, I'm going to say is like, okay, if you get your ideas from other people, listen in and listen to other folks who have done cool things.
00:33:41
Speaker
So like that. Okay. So speaking of executing some of these things, I think something impressive that you have done is the restructure and reformation of technology at Land O'Lakes and what that department looks like, which is still requires a big vision, but also execution.
00:33:58
Speaker
So tell me, what gave you the confidence to go for this? And what challenges did you have as you reworked what IT looks like at Land O'Lakes? Yeah. And and again, yeah and you have to remember, like i mean I worked at in technology even before taking this role, right? So I took this role and one of the things that, you know, and it's always different when you're like in charge of a group, you start to see things that are under a different light that you didn't see it before.
00:34:23
Speaker
And, you know, before I always thought, you know, what like our technology organization doesn't move as fast as our business needs us to move. Right. And amen I feel like there's people in corporate who are just like, amen, what you just said.
00:34:36
Speaker
Right. Right. And, you know, it's like, so, so there's always this question of like, well, if we want to go do something innovative and fast and, do we have to separate out? Like, do we need to have a separate organization of technologists that are like, really like to be on the bleeding edge and separate them from the rest of the crowd. And then some people could just do the support and the basic stuff and they kind of keep the lights on while these people work on like the cool stuff. Right. Like, and as I thought about that, I'm like, ah there was something about, well, which ones would you pluck out? Cause a lot of times the good ones that are, you would say, oh, they can work on the special group. are The ones that are like the,
00:35:12
Speaker
but the people that hold everything together in the existing environment. They're kind of like the linchpins making other stuff happen. Exactly. So you take them out of the pit, the whole thing might crumble now or things don't work as well.
00:35:22
Speaker
So it's like yeah, that's that's this idea of a separating and kind of this innovation group separate doesn't doesn't really work. What you have to do is change the whole. And so that was one kind of thing that hit me. And the second one was, as I, you know, we we we had a challenging year, one of those years in 2019 or something like that.
00:35:39
Speaker
And it was, I remember talking to somebody in technology and they went, Well, I understand that our business is challenged this year for a variety of reasons, and you explained why, but we in technology did our job, so why are we not getting our bonus?
00:35:50
Speaker
Like, you do realize you work for this larger organization, right? Like, you are part of this organization. Like, no, no, I get that part, but we did our job. We did our part. and and i And I just, again, that was the second thing that hit me. I'm like, oh, we don't really feel like we're part of this organization.
00:36:04
Speaker
So the big shakeup we did was, okay, we need to, technology needs to be closer to the business, and we need to be more integrated. So We went from this approach of you bring us projects or things to work on. We will price them out for you, whether it's with internal or external resources, and we'll give you a ah price tag. And then if you say yes, sign on the dotted line and we'll go do it, right?
00:36:25
Speaker
When we have availability, like, which is always the the challenging part to more like, let's not do this anymore. And how about we just take people and take them in pods of like knowledge and assign them to different parts of the business. And they're just embedded in there and they will absorb all the requests coming in.
00:36:40
Speaker
And then working with their partners, counterparts, co-employees, like together, we'll figure out what to work on. And so that's a good way for our technology to get closer to the business, but it's a good way for the business to get closer to technology.
00:36:53
Speaker
And so that was sort of the big change we made, but it was like it had a fundamental implications because we were organized by capability, right? So we had people that knew how to do web development, for example, and they were all in one group and they were just assigned to different projects.
00:37:07
Speaker
And now what we're saying is, we going to break up the web development group? And a portion of you are going to go with this team over there. Another one's going to go over here. You are going to know dairy. You guys are going know animal nutrition, right? So all of that. And so they were in this like, well, how am I supposed to continue to improve myself when I am dispersed now, right? That was the question I was just going to ask. How do they have thought partners that are in the same space?
00:37:26
Speaker
Right, right. so So that was the biggest like worry at the time. And so we said, well, you know what? Like when you go in there, number one thing they found themselves is that all of a sudden they went from somebody telling them what to do to being the, if you're the only web developer,
00:37:39
Speaker
on this team, when somebody says, hey, we need to go do something and on the web and we need an application for this, everybody's going to turn around, look at you, go, yeah, so what do you think? And now you're in the leadership spot and whether you liked it or not, you're empowered to make a decision.
00:37:54
Speaker
So now we're empowering you to do something. So that was that was a slight, a subtle, but big change. And now when they went, well, I don't, I, okay, I think we might do it thus this way, but I need to go consult with some of my, with my other colleagues to see if this is the right approach.
00:38:09
Speaker
So what do you go back to? And that was the idea of setting up still some sort of a center of excellence or what we call it a capability team where you can come back and there's a group of people that work in different areas, but they can come together and go, what are you trying to do?
00:38:20
Speaker
And now people can debate it out. And then that person goes back and they look like a rockstar because they're like, I got it. This is what we're going to do. Right. And so that was the keys to help this. We were not decentralizing technology because that's not the right way. We were just distributing technology while still having An identity in the middle. And that's one thing we worked hard on is how do we continue to maintain manage that identity of the technology group? And we even created like a little saying to say, hey, as a group, we make it possible. It was dorky, yes, but make IT possible.
00:38:50
Speaker
um And then in that it, they could say, I make digital possible. I make collaboration possible or whatever they want to put in there, signifying that they were part of a larger group, but they were there. sort of as you know part of the pod that they were representing and feeling more part of that function or business unit that they're working with every day. Now, you fast forward to now, these people are like domain experts in that area, not only in the capability, but also the areas they work.
00:39:14
Speaker
But again, we still got a long journey. We got to remind people, hey, we made progress because sometimes it's like doesn't feel like like you made like five steps forward and six back, but it's actually five steps forward, two back. That's okay. That's progress.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yes, yes. think when you look back over the long term, that's when you see the progress. But if you're in the day to day, you can still see all the problems that you want to fix and you haven't gotten to yet. So sometimes it's just perspective. But that's a really cool way to think about structuring a team. And it's neat to see how well it's it seems to be working for you guys.
00:39:42
Speaker
you know, I think it's human nature where we like to have delineation of like, this is my sandbox. that I play this with my friends. And then you have your sandbox over there and you play in your sandbox with your friends.
00:39:53
Speaker
But then it creates like a little bit of fight between the sandboxes. Yes, there's us versus them. It naturally gets created, right? And so this is the work. i mean, when I say I'm in with a lot of people, I don't meet on like, hey, let's go create the next best thing sometimes. But most of the time it's like, hey, we're we're not agreeing with each other.
00:40:11
Speaker
We're having issues. There's conflicts. This person didn't do that and we're waiting on them and they're making the whole thing look bad. And again, it's not trying to mediate that either. It's more trying to figure out, okay, what went wrong in this interaction? How can we make that better going forward?
00:40:23
Speaker
But that that tends to happen a lot, you know, and and and I will tell you, like my team will tell you that I hate when I hear we partnered with this group to get something done. I'm like, what does that mean, partnered? Even if I use a sports analogy, you imagine a football team of like the linebackers saying, hey, we partnered with the running backs to score this touchdown. They're not partnering. You are just one team.
00:40:39
Speaker
Like if all of you don't work together, it's not going to happen, right? And so there's this mindset shift that needs to happen where people need to feel like a team, although they have specific capabilities and domains that they each own.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah. I love the football analogy. i love sports analogies when it comes to leadership in general, because I think it takes the like emotion sometimes out of it. But yeah. No, you would never say like the offense partnered with the defense. That's such a weird thing.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And well we lost the game and it's like, i we did our job. I don't know about those over there. they They totally messed it up. When you have teams like that, it doesn't go well, right? No, they're not winning championships. No, they're not.
00:41:16
Speaker
Oh, want to stick on technology for a second because this is my own just curiosity. So in that type of structure that you have created, How do you deal with the challenge of sometimes in innovation, especially at the beginning, it is especially to a big business like Land O'Lakes.
00:41:32
Speaker
It can be a small, very teeny tiny, like you could lose it in the parking lot kind of expense as far as revenue. Like we're we're talking about a $5 million dollars project over here that maybe has potential, but it's taking away resources from like a $50 million dollars revenue stream.
00:41:48
Speaker
How do you deal with the balance of if we invest time here on this little baby project now, it could grow while you still have to maintain this revenue stream over here. Yeah. So so I think it's in what you call it in a lot of times, right? So we'll stick to technology because that could be applied to R&D and a whole bunch of other.
00:42:05
Speaker
But in the technology, for example, we do a lot of experiments. So experiment is not even a project or ah something or an initiative. It's just something we're messing around with. And The clear mandate there is you work on it to improve to for personal development, right? So if you want to go learn what quantum computing is, let's go do a little experiment on quantum computing.
00:42:26
Speaker
This thing may never go anywhere. It'll sit on a shelf. The only reason we use an ag or a ah dairy use case is so it makes it real and it's in our world. But it's just for you, six, seven, whoever's involved in this to learn this technology. You play around with it. You must have a start and an end and then you can put it on the shelf.
00:42:42
Speaker
so at least you use that. And so those have become very easy to do. Instead of like, I want to go to this class, which people can do. It's more like, I want to go learn about quantum. Okay, go work on an experiment see what that works. And then like, what did you learn from that? it Was it fun? Like, is the technology there yet? Or, um yeah, no, the infrastructure is not quite built.
00:42:58
Speaker
Those are the learnings people get out. And those are great. Then from experiments, we're getting into the prototyping phase. So that would normally be one of these pod teams say, hey, we have an idea. We're working on our big things that are like, that's necessary to hit our targets this year and working on some stuff for next year, but we just want to mess around. And like, we may think this thing may have some legs, but we just want to go prove it out.
00:43:20
Speaker
So all they have to do is carve out some time because mostly it's time. The investment itself is not that big of a deal. Like you go buy a couple of things, but it's more of the investment of people's brain power. But the idea is to make these teams say, you do need to have time to prototype, to try things may or may not go. And we do that. So that's a key piece of that.
00:43:39
Speaker
And there is a lot of times when thumb something flips. where like, and again, when you do these prototypes, this is also the time where it goes out of technology, meaning like, there are some technology people, but you also get some other people involved.
00:43:51
Speaker
And they go, really, we we can we can do that? Like, what if we did? And that's how things get bigger. And over time, as this thing gets bigger, it becomes one of the main things this team starts to work on. and And then now becomes okay, now we're making a big bet.
00:44:04
Speaker
We're dedicating our time to it. Let's go forward. So that's the way to start with like, hey, don't be worried about just mess around and then like put on the shelf you wanted to like, oh, this is like the next best thing we're going to do.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, think about it kind of like a snowball. I like what that you called it an experiment too. That also I feel like fits very well in agriculture. Like we're a very science-based industry. It just experiment feels not as scary, right? Gives you the idea that like experiments fail. Yeah, they fail all the time.
00:44:32
Speaker
Different that like, oh, we have this big initiative. We better not screw that up. Like you don't want you don't want to have that sort of pressure on you. Yeah. Okay. From the human side of of making change, what advice do you have for someone who is is trying to make change in a large organization or trying to do something new or innovative?
00:44:51
Speaker
and think that's a great question. but Hopefully, first of all, people feel empowered enough to propose that, to make a change, to say, let's let's go try this, et cetera. Now, I will say before you go and go big and tell a lot of people and then you get frustrated because nobody wants to listen to you or they don't want to take that risk, et cetera,
00:45:08
Speaker
The number one thing is you want to go make a change, but you better be prepared to change yourself because you may have an idea. But as it starts to unfold, what people tell you may go like, how yeah, yeah mean maybe if you did this and you got to be OK start adjusting yourself. And better yet, why don't you get the other person, whoever you're pitching it to to co-create with you?
00:45:28
Speaker
You have an idea. Let them bring their sort of thought process into this. Let them co-create with you because now they own it, too. And now it's not a one person trying to change. It's two people trying to change it And three people. And as you go along, you may have to continue to adapt your thing, which is completely different from where you started at the beginning.
00:45:45
Speaker
So that's the that's the issue a lot of times because people may not think the same way. Maybe they don't have the vision that you have, or maybe you don't have the sort of like the experience that they have seen before of why something may not work. So how can you continue to adjust it? And that's how you slowly start to make changes. And it may be completely different from the way you started, but it's important to be able to be open to adapt.
00:46:08
Speaker
you're trying to to do as well and that's how i think see things unfold so that's one the second thing is if you really want to be able to start to make change influencing is a big deal having but having the ability to influence others gets other excited about the idea you might have but not as your thing right so i love that one movie to go see would be inception i love that movie because you almost have to make it the other person's idea And then they're like, they get so excited about their idea that they want to go do it. And again, are you going to get caught up and you're not getting the credit for it?
00:46:40
Speaker
So if you're stuck there, like it may not, this thing may not flourish the way you want to, but again, I'm not saying you go into somebody's dream and change their dreams and all that kind of stuff like inception, but the ability to influence and the influence really means that like, I'm not trying to push my thing onto you, but I'm trying to get you to see what I'm trying to see, but you see it through your lens.
00:46:58
Speaker
And then together we can like go make something magical happen. So that's, you know, that's, that's part of the, the magic and kind of pushing change in ah and in any given group organization, et cetera, et cetera.
00:47:09
Speaker
What would you say to someone who is working to make that change? And maybe even they have a little bit of a mandate, right? Or a empowerment from leadership of like, this is the change that we want you to make, but they're running up against like brick walls with other team members or, you know, just running into frustrations. It's going to happen anytime you're trying to make change. But what would you say to someone in that scenario?
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, the question is, okay, when somebody puts up a brick wall for you, why are they putting up a brick wall? And it always starts with what's in it for them, right? Like so lot sometimes what might happen let's take somebody who's got a great idea and they come to the technology organizations like, i we need to use generative AI to do blah, blah, blah, blah right?
00:47:48
Speaker
So the person in technology listening to this is going, oh my God, I think you're just going to create a lot more work and I may have to stay after hours to go do this thing and that mean, I'll go anywhere, but I'm just going to lose, you know, like hours of my life doing that. mean, that's what they're thinking, right? So as the person pitching the idea to the technologist, you can't just tell them about the great idea and how awesome it's going to be and how you're going to benefit from it.
00:48:08
Speaker
It's going to, they're going to think what's but's in it for me. And so if you come with that lens, all of sudden you start to explain how they can participate in this big thing or help, whatever, and help me shape this thing. And what do you think, et cetera?
00:48:20
Speaker
That's the secret sauce is how do you, how do you make sure that the other person starts to own it with you? And really understand what's in it for them or what's not in it for them, which is just as important.
00:48:31
Speaker
and And then see if like, how, what you know, can you, can you start to adjust once you see that you have to look at things from other people's lenses. That's going to be critical and anything that any individual wants to do going forward.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So someone listening to you Teddy, might be like, well, that doesn't, I mean, influence is important. Yes. I think any of us who have been through a leadership workshop have heard that. But what you're saying maybe sounds like manipulation. How do i make it feel not icky?
00:48:56
Speaker
Let me give you an example. So like, i want to go eat Thai dinner tonight. And I come to you and I say, hey we should go have Thai dinner tonight. And you're like, it's spicy.
00:49:07
Speaker
in the mood for that. how would I get you to want to go to Thai restaurant? Right. And so the first place I would start is not necessarily like, okay, I'm going to manipulate you to go eat Thai food tonight. and yeah i going to feel good about that at the end. Right.
00:49:20
Speaker
So, so like, yeah, so let's use a practical example. So might go, well, what are you in the mood for then? Right. Like tell me what you, wait what you're in the mood for. And you might go, well, might go for this. I might go for that, et cetera.
00:49:30
Speaker
So this is where I go. and Now I have to be flexible to go, okay, maybe I don't want to, maybe Thai is not where I want to go, but maybe we could settle on like fusion food. Maybe like, are you in the mood for sushi? Like maybe we can pick a place that has a little bit of both, right? And this and that. And, oh, have you heard about this new place? like And you're like, no, like do you know of any new places? Like, have you is there a place you've been wanting to try for quite some time?
00:49:52
Speaker
And this is the discussion you have, right? And so at the end, you might be getting more excited about going to try this thing that's been on your list forever than me going to eat Thai food at the end. So, and then we go eat and and now, and so like, have I manipulated you into eating Thai food? No, but what I've done is ah brought you into the fold of like, hey, let's go do something together. Let's go find something that we have common ground, something you like, I'm okay to bend where where needed.
00:50:19
Speaker
And at the end, we might end up in a situation where we really enjoy our dinner and we've kind of tried something crazy that we hadn't done before, right? So this would be a way I think to to do things, because yeah, and manipulate If it's manipulation, it will always be very, very apparent, right? Like, I mean, like, ah you know it, like, you know, when somebody is trying to get you to do something you don't want to do, the the key is like, you know, are they genuine about this? Are they authentic? And they really, are they, are they looking out for my interest just as much as their own, or if not more, which I think is even more important. And then, then you you start to change your attitude towards the whole thing. So.
00:50:55
Speaker
I really appreciate the example of just like trying to get someone to go to dinner because I think a lot of us have been in that scenario, right? Like I will be honest, Teddy, I used to be a very, very picky eater. i love that you use the Thai food example because I love Thai food. It's one of my favorites.
00:51:09
Speaker
But it wouldn't have been many, many years ago. And it took someone being like, hey, what do you like? Why do you not like it? Do you like things like this? Maybe let's go try it together. Now it's one of my favorite places. to Like if you said we're going to Thai food, I'm like, heck yes.
00:51:23
Speaker
Which restaurant? Let's go. do you want to share several things at once? Because I want to try all the things on the menu. Such a good example to make it feel just like a normal conversation that we have every day. Because I think sometimes in the workplace, those simple things of trying to get someone on board with an idea or with change can feel like so much more higher pressure than let's, I want to go out to eat with you.
00:51:46
Speaker
ah And there's still conversations either way. That's exactly right. And you brought it up. There's deadlines, there's pressures, there's the, hey, you need to deliver something. i want to be able to look like i I made progress, right? Like all those things are mounting up. So you're like, I don't have time to spend time with Nicole and figure out how I can really get her involved. That seems like counterintuitive, but I'm like, but that actually is a thing that's going to accelerate things for you like or your progress in the future. so And I think a lot of times we lose that. And The other big piece, like I kind of mentioned it in there, is this how you treat people.
00:52:17
Speaker
One of the biggest things is you got to treat people better than you would treat your own self. you You stick with that, like things will be fine, right? i yeah mean And meaning it, right? not Not like just, it's nice to say, but I really don't mean that.
00:52:27
Speaker
Like you treat people and you and they can feel like you're putting their best interest ahead of yours. And that's felt in an an authentic way. Like like that's that's the way to get, you want to call it consensus or alignment or, you know, like support.
00:52:42
Speaker
All that comes with it afterwards. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Teddy, well, I could talk to you all day, but i do need to get to a couple other segments and let you get on with with your day.
00:52:53
Speaker
We're going to move into what we like to call speed mentoring here at the Cultivating Leaders podcast. So I'm going to ask you some kind of rapid fire questions. Just try to answer them as quick as you can. Sure. If you had to summarize your entire leadership philosophy in one sentence, what would it be?
00:53:08
Speaker
Treat others better than you would treat yourself. Okay, I said rapid fire, but now I've got to know, Teddy, because we just talked about this. one Where did that idea or lesson or principle come from for you? I had a couple of mentors in my life and there are some that I remember.
00:53:23
Speaker
So you have mentors, you have coaches, and then you also have sponsors, right? And sometimes your sponsors and your mentors can be one in the same. You may not know that that's the case, but it could be. And sometimes your coach, which may not be your direct leader, could also be a sponsor in some cases.
00:53:38
Speaker
I've had two particularly that I felt that where they put like my interests ahead of their own and one of them to their, to their own detriment in a way. And i will never forget that.
00:53:49
Speaker
And I would do anything for that person now, right? Like they could call me and say, Hey, I need you to fly here and help me with this. Like I'm there, right? Like hands down. And so i'm like, that is, that is how we should be as humans.
00:54:01
Speaker
Like if we all operated that way, like relationships would be so much better between humans. Yes. Oh, sorry. had to ask the follow-up question. Okay. Back to rapid fire. What is one principle you believe to always be true, no matter what the changes are in technology or agriculture?
00:54:17
Speaker
I would say change is inevitable. Things will always change. That is the one thing you can rely upon. So it's learning to embrace the change. So whether it's you agree with the change don't agree with the change, embracing, and i don't embracing, it means change yourself.
00:54:30
Speaker
It just means understand what that change is. see what things you may want to adapt from that new change and continually adapt yourself to that because that's going to be absolutely necessary. When you don't do that, i think you just say you just have a harder time going forward. So technology, whether it's the AI thing we talked about now, there'll be something else in a few years that will come. Agriculture, things are constantly changing, right?
00:54:52
Speaker
And whether it's good for the bad, however you see it, it's always that's always going to happen. So embracing it, understanding it, adapting to it, that's going to be critical. What would you tell a young agriculturalist or I would say young professional probably who has a big, bold idea but is scared of getting shot down?
00:55:10
Speaker
I would say go for it. Like you you have to, you know, you have you have to try. Like you if you don't try, i mean, I tell my 12-year-old this, hopefully it sticks one day. You can try and fail and you'll pick back up and do it again, right?
00:55:24
Speaker
If you'd never try, you've already failed. i Like that's like not trying is failure in itself, right? And so might as well try. you mean You never know, right? And so I'll say try to go with the big, bold idea. And we talked about a lot of things earlier as far as ways in which you can get your idea across, get others to help you with that, make sure you're ready to change your idea and adapt it to what somebody else might want as well because that's how you kind of build together, but never be scared to to take the shot.
00:55:51
Speaker
What would Teddy from 10 years ago think of you now? He would say I have a lot more patience and I talk way too much.
00:56:00
Speaker
And it's weird, right? Because i'm i'm an introvert by nature. And so i I recharge by being by myself. And younger years, like I talked a lot less, which was not as good. I mean, there's good sides to being able to speak more, which this role has given me the opportunity to be able to have an opportunity to speak more and and and get my thoughts out clearly, et cetera, which I struggled with that in the past.
00:56:25
Speaker
But the one thing I feel like I am losing a little bit is the ability to listen. See, when you don't teach speak as much, you listen quite a bit more. And so that's the thing where it's like you don't listen as much because you talk way too much. And, and you know, and I can see that sort of struggle inside of me. But yes, that's that's what would happen.
00:56:42
Speaker
Well, at least you're self-aware and you can see the difference now. ah So that's good. What do you hope the next generation of agriculture leaders dares to do differently than your generation? You know, we talk about this all the time.
00:56:55
Speaker
i think. One of the things that's that I would love for, and and i even even now, like even now, folks that are in their early mid late 20s, they always think about, okay, how do i continue to advance my career?
00:57:12
Speaker
And my thing is, why don't you enjoy the job you're in right now, right? like like And when I say my dad is, actually really have fun doing the work. And I think the next generation, that's what I'd love for them to do is, um and again, my generation, we were in the generation before that probably more so focused on career advancement, right? And get to the next level, get a bigger title, whatever, all those things might be.
00:57:33
Speaker
And I'm like, you know, one thing that we miss is that enjoy the job itself, right? When I look back on my career, some of the jobs I enjoyed is the ones where i truly had fun doing the work and do a good job it. Because when you enjoy do the work, you do a great job at it. When you do a great job, you expand it naturally because you want to do even a better job. Not because you're going to get praise, not because you're going to get something out of it. It's just because you actually like doing it.
00:57:56
Speaker
And the more you can expand that way, all the other stuff will come. It will 100% come. But focus on doing that. And I think we can produce better work as ah as ah as ah as a group, as a society, if we do that. so that would be my hope for the next generation.
00:58:10
Speaker
Mic drop. That's great advice, Teddy. Yeah. I think if you're too focused on what's next, you forget to enjoy the season you're in and how much fun you can have with the job that you're in right now.
00:58:21
Speaker
That's exactly right. Okay. What is the one leadership resource? It can be a book, podcast, anything along those lines that you would recommend people check out. You know, book, and the timeless book for me is Tuesdays with Maury.
00:58:35
Speaker
Like I've always loved that book. and i've And I've read it. It's the only book I've read, well, I may have written i've read a book twice, but this is only book i I know for sure I've read at least four times.
00:58:46
Speaker
and And the reason I say that is because, you know, you know the principles and all that, it goes back to where we started our conversation. How do you bring human back into the loop and bring more of our humanity out of us? And I think that book does that for me. It's an easy read.
00:59:00
Speaker
And I just go back and like, what really matters in life at the end of the day? And what are some of the things we should be doing every day? and And so I love all the topics covered in there, all the lessons learned. So that's one book for me is is Timeless.
00:59:13
Speaker
One podcast, of course, the Cultivating Leaders podcast. actually listened to that. I listened to Kansas the other day when I was driving back. It helps me prepare for some of the questions too. So there's a podcast called the Acquired that I've been listening to lately.
00:59:24
Speaker
And it's it it's ah it's it's only once a month. So that's a good thing. But they're long episodes. But it talks about companies have been around for a long time and who they are, et cetera. And they have some little facts and anecdotes about these companies. And I find that to be interesting too.
00:59:37
Speaker
Good one. I have not read Tuesdays with Maury, so that one's going to go. No, you haven't? I haven't. I'm a big reader too. So that is going on the list. Okay. What's the best leadership advice you've ever received? The best leadership advice that I've received is, and again, so i I don't want to take credit for the one I mentioned earlier, which is the, it was from my dad.
00:59:55
Speaker
And he he would say, you're going to do something, do it right. So I would rather you not do the job and and and I get upset with you rather than you do a lousy job.
01:00:07
Speaker
going to it, do it right. Yeah. Simple, but good. Yes. Okay. At AFA, we love hot takes. So hot takes, bold opinions. What is a hot take or unconventional opinion about agriculture or technology in ag or the future of agriculture that you have, Teddy?
01:00:26
Speaker
Yeah. go back to the what we said earlier. I think Agriculture in a lot of cases gets viewed as this slow to move, non-technologically advanced industry. And it couldn't be further from the truth.
01:00:36
Speaker
I think we do some really interesting things. We just make sure we do it in such a way that we don't mortgage to the future or screw up, you know, kind of what we're trying to do, because there is a purpose to what we do. And so we want to be very mindful of it. But I think that's something that, but there's some really, really cool things we do in agriculture.
01:00:53
Speaker
Amazing. Teddy, thank you so, so much for your time. I'll be honest. I think this has been one of my favorite episodes. I could keep talking to you for so long. As we wrap up, Teddy, where would you send people if they want to stay connected to you, to your work? Where can they find you?
01:01:06
Speaker
If you go to landolakes.com, what you'll find is a bunch of recipes. And i do ah ah ah I do encourage everybody to go. One of the best things that came out of COVID for me is I got into baking. Like that was another thing I did for a little while.
01:01:18
Speaker
I don't do it as much now. It's sad. probably have to go back to it. But if you want to know some of the work that Land O'Lakes as an organization, as a cooperative for doing, landolakesinc.com is probably the place to go. And you can see a lot of the who we are, kind of get the full breadth of the Land O'Lakes cooperative system, our members, and some of the work that we do every day, which is really, really exciting.
01:01:39
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you so much, Teddy, for your time, your wisdom, your lessons, ah your ideas for the future. i know that I gained some things from this episode and I know our listeners will too. So thank you so much.
01:01:50
Speaker
Great. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the Cultivating Leaders podcast brought to you by Agriculture Future of America. if you've been here before, you know we value feedback as a gift.
01:02:01
Speaker
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