Frye: Ask these three questions about major decisions

As the leader of your farm operation, there are so many different choices you’re making on a daily basis for your farm. From the mundane to the major, there’s always some type of decision to make or choices to consider.

Maybe you manage a team of people and are responsible to decide what each of them is supposed to do on any given day. Or, maybe a piece of land comes up for sale in the area and it’s up you to decide whether the operation will pursue it or not.

Decision Fatigue

It’s not easy to have to call so many shots every single day. There’s even a term for it: decision fatigue. It describes the burnt-out feeling or inability to make any decision that can start to creep up on a leader, potentially even as a workday progresses.

There are ways to combat the fatigue, such as using built-in processes for routine decisions or delegating some of the decision-making to other family members or employees.

It can also be helpful if everyone in the operation has a clear understanding of the farm’s priorities, both in terms of the current priorities — what we need to get done today — as well as the longer term.

No matter what, there will still be certain decisions — usually the larger, higher-impact ones — that will be the leader’s responsibility. How do you figure out what the best decision is for your operation?

Three Questions To Ask

There are several things to consider, especially when it comes to the biggest decisions the leader must make. Try asking these questions.

1. Does this decision align with our goals and values? When there’s a big decision to be made — and this should come into play with smaller decisions, too — the major goals for the future of the operation need to be held up next to it. What I mean is that what you’re choosing to do now needs to be done with the big goals of the operation in mind, that doing this now will move you closer to those goals. Hold the values of the operation next to the potential decision, as well. The farm’s values serve as a guide in decision-making, like a compass.

2. Does the decision make sense financially for our operation? Professional farm operations that want to grow and thrive into the future need to make sure that all major decisions make financial sense for the operation as a whole. Decisions need to be run by the numbers to get a sense of the financial impact and how it will affect the metrics of the operation, too. The numbers can reveal a lot that might not be apparent right on the surface. It’s very important to run feasibility studies on large purchases like land and high-dollar equipment.

3. Have we sized up the opportunity that’s at stake? This will apply more to some decisions than others. When there is an opportunity for the operation that’s involved in the decision, how can you work to determine the potential impact that it may have on your operation? Doing this means being able to envision the future of where you want your operation to be in the next five to 10 years, and then trying to quantify in some way what this opportunity may mean in terms of moving the operation toward success.