Teacher to Teacher

A Newsletter for OSU Extension ManagementExcel Team Members

September 1998

Eric Barrett, Editor

Issue VI

Thirty-six Ohio ManagementExcel Teachers and others from OSU Extension participated in the June 1998 National Conference for Management Educators of Agriculture Audiences.

The following ManagementExcel teachers presented workshops:

Congratulations on your fine presentations!

"This conference has helped take my teaching to a new level. I have always known the importance of hands-on work and activities in teaching but the presenters reinforced this. I have made a commitment to incorporate games or hands-on, learner-centered activities into my programs and classes.

This conference really motivated me to move my teaching up a notch. Just two weeks after the conference I implemented some of these ideas at the Ohio Florist Association Short Course in Columbus in two of my presentations!"

"Friends, food and free advice were abundant at the National Conference for Management Educators of Agricultural Audiences in Columbus. Old acquaintances from the Rochester conference were there to meet and discuss ManagementExcel experiences over the past few years and what we have done to change or improve our presentations and marketing.

The food was good and no one went away hungry. The food for the mind, especially the first keynote address by Michael Boehlje, was filled with calories. He gave us a good glimpse into the future.

Teaching advice and techniques were well presented. We all need to capitalize on the ideas, share them and use them in our teaching. We are all looking forward to the next conference as we move into the next century and the new challenges that await us."

"At conferences I always meet interesting people and learn new ideas. This conference was especially successful in those aspects. I learned lots of new ideas for programming in my county for the upcoming year. The speakers were very educational and presented many ideas for management in the future.

Our farmers are great at producing a product, but many struggle with the management of their business. There is a need to help farmers deal with the challenges of change in agriculture. More programming on management delivered to the specific needs of our farmers is one way to accomplish this. Other participants at the conference had similar challenges in their states."

• After the National Conference-- Where to From Here?
• Small Business Team Pairs with Industry
• DairyExcel's Profitability and Expansion Initiative
• What's in it for me? An Update on our Web Page
• New Direction for the Fruit & Vegetable Team

ManagementExcel- Helping People Improve Their Management Skills

More than 130 management educators from around the US and Canada came to Columbus for the National Conference for Management Educators of Agricultural Audiences in June. These participants learned about study trips, conflict resolution, putting the control function to work, teaching concepts and much more. But now that it's over--what do we do next?

Part of the answer simple- continue to do what you are doing. Continue to help people improve their management skills. There are also many new ideas and challenges learned at the conference that we can use to improve our programs and take them to the next level.

Bernie's keynote, Fitting the Family into Family Business Education, is one such challenge.

Sometimes our own paradigms keep us from marketing and planning our programs to incorporate the family. Some of his insights can help us plan new curricula and workshops.

Mike Bohlje offered his insights into Management Challenges in a Changing Agriculture. He emphasized the importance of keeping up with change and the difficulties involved in that for farm managers.

Dave Galton spoke about, Education Challenges in a Changing Agriculture. He spoke of the importance of changing mind set, attitude, skills and knowledge of participants and the importance of partnerships with Agriservice and effective Extension programs to do this.

Terry Smith concluded the conference with his thoughts on Where Do We Go Next With Management Education? He discussed the importance of continual learning and merging research with new teaching.

Each of these keynotes and many interesting presentations from the conference are in the conference proceedings and can be obtained by contacting Eric at 614-292-6432.

Small Business ManagementExcel Team Partners with Industry

The Small Business ManagementExcel team has created unique partnerships with sponsoring organizations. These partnership with the Lake Erie Marine Trade Association (LEMTA) and Ohio Campground Owners Association (OCOA) have made it easier for us to do what we do best--teach. These organizations take care of all the arrangements, leaving us time to concentrate on our teaching material. LEMTA and OCOA recruit participants from their rosters and enroll them in the program using a promotional brochure provided by the team. These organizations are doing the marketing for us, much faster and more efficiently that we could. LEMTA and OCOA handle the registration and reimburse us for our costs after the program has concluded. This helps the team with travel costs since we have members all across the state. In most instances these organizations subsidize the costs of putting on the program, thereby lowering participant's cost. Perhaps the nicest thing about working with these organizations is that we are able to reach out to non-typical Extension clientele in both rural and urban settings.

In 1996, the team was ready to teach. The only thing left was recruiting participants. Frank Lichtkoppler thought that the LEMTA would benefit from Small Business ManagementExcel and that a workshop would be good to cosponsor for its membership. Walt Williams, Jimmy Lindner and Frank worked with Norm Schultz, executive vice

president of LEMTA to get started. The team put together a meeting to explain Small Business ManagementExcel to several representative members and received their input into what marina dealers needed. LEMTA liked the idea and decided to sponsor the program. The team conducted workshops in 1997 and 1998 for 33 marina dealers. LEMTA marketed the program to its membership and paid for most of the expenses as a service to their members. LEMTA made all the arrangements for registration, the hotel room, lunch etc. with one of their member business. LEMTA members paid a nominal fee ($25) to LEMTA to participate. The Small Business ManagementExcel team did all the teaching and used end of day evaluations to fine-tune the program to meet the needs of the participants.

Neil Andrew recognized the potential for the tourism industry when he saw a display about the DairyExcel team. This prompted him to join the Small Business ManagementExcel team and to seek out ways to help managers in the tourism industry. Neil started his cooperative effort with OCOA while giving a presentation at their annual meeting in February 1996. After seeing an opportunity with the group, Neil suggested that OCOA help the campground owners and operators improve through management education. The organization bought in and a sign-up list was started that day for those who were interested. He stressed that the program could be customized to meet their specific management needs.

Neil suggests a four-step method in establishing partnerships with industry:

1. Establish a working relationship;
2. Watch for the opportunity;
3. Introduce the program to key people; and
4. Market the program to them.

Evaluations conducted with graduates of Dairy Excel resulted in our team developing a Profitability and Expansion Initiative. Graduates told us they needed assistance determining 1) How to become more competitive and 2) If they were ready to expand their business.

Team members offered farmers assistance in their areas of expertise and called on specialists and others for assistance--but this was not enough. A coordinated way to address these needs was becoming increasingly urgent. Within the team, members chose projects they have the time, interest and expertise to invest in at the time we began to develop this program.

In determining how the business could improve, we decided that the manager first needed to really know where he was. This is the Phase 1 Assessment. This process provides numerous opportunities to continue the management education begun in Managing for Success. The assessment is divided into three areas:

• Management: The management assessment is organized around the five management functions. Through discussions with the management team, the assessor develops a list of strengths and weaknesses for each management function.
• Facilities and Resources: Evaluate the physical resources including cattle, equipment, buildings, land, cropping program, manure management program, urban pressure, etc. The assessor identifies strengths and weaknesses consistent with goals of the management team.
• Financial: Evaluate the financial resources and performance of the business. We use a

combination of Finpack, historical balance sheets, historical 1040F forms and the "15 Measures of Dairy Farm Competitiveness" to identify strengths and areas that need improvement.

The next step of Phase I is for the assessment team to meet and share their individual findings and develop overall recommendations. We found that a farm may look very strong in a particular area (management or financial - for example), but once the team looks at the whole picture, there is often lively discussion as to what the final recommendations should be. After this session, we take a week to review the work and conclusions. This information is then given to the farmer in a notebook.

The final step the assessment team takes is to sit down with the whole management team at their farm and go through the recommendations and results of each area of the assessment. These have always been rewarding sessions with a great deal of discussion between the assessment and management teams. Often, there are suggestions for follow-up work with members of the assessment team, state or district specialists or the farm's attorneys or other consultants.

After this final meeting, the farm is contacted for follow- up evaluation and to see if they have any additional questions or concerns about the assessments. Responses to the evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive. This is especially gratifying when we realize not all of the assessments had the results the managers were hoping for.

The next step for the team has been to train Terry Beck and Jim Skeeles to do management assessments. With a little juggling of responsibilities, this allows us to have 2 people available in each assessment area and makes it easier to schedule each farm.

Meanwhile, we have been working on Phase 2, developing a business plan. Tom Noyes, Ernie Oelker, Chris Zoller and myself are developing an outline sample and references to use with farmers as they plan an expansion or other business changes. These business plans focus on the management functions as well as things like physical resources and finances.

http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu

Have you had a chance to check out the ManagementExcel web site lately? It is full of new things to help you and your team in management education efforts. The newest section includes management resources. Several documents are linked to this page. Bernie's articles on each management function and

creative problem solving are there for you to print off or to paste into a word processing program to use for notebooks. There is a link to the OSUE Leadership Center so you can see what new resources are available to reserve. Under ManagementExcel Teaching Resources there are video reviews, paradigm slides, sample mission statements and much more!

Another new link is to Management Education Programs in other states. Fine out what New

York, California, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are doing in their programs. You may find some new ideas for your workshops or other programs relating to your team's activities.

There are also pages for each team. If your team would like to place more information about your team on the web, simply email the information to me at barrett.90@osu.edu or call me at 614-292-6432.

Fruit & Vegetable Excel Team

Ron Overmeyer- Coordinator, ABE Center

The Northwest Ohio Fruit and Vegetable Excel Team is in the process of restructuring and reorganization. A planning committee composed of Norm Moll, OSU Extension Agent in Lucas County; Debbie Raucsh, OSU Extension Agent at the Agricultural Business Enhancement Center and I developed some preliminary plans that have been shared with the agents in the Northwest District.

This plan is still in very rough form. The final adjustments to the plan will be made in early fall. We are sharing the plan with you to spark ideas for other teams who may wish to consider changes in their Excel program format.

The mission of the program is, "To improve the management skills of upcoming generations in farm family commercial fruit and/or vegetable operations. The upcoming generation members should be people who are moving into expanding management positions."

accomplish with the plan. The objectives are:

1. To target the audience who

will benefit the most from the experience.

2. To involve the family members in the experience since the success of the individual depends on the success of the family organization.
3. To determine the management information needs of the participants and to adjust the program to meet those needs.
4. To improve the electronic communication skills of farm managers by making its use part of the program.
5. To effectively use the talents of the Extension agents who will serve as instructors for the program.

One of the several other parts of the team's plan is a description of the target audience. This includes:

1. Upcoming generation member in some level of business management position. Part of a commercial size, established fruit and/or vegetable operation.

4. E. Willing to commit time to the program during the fall and winter period. Time commitment will include two or three face-to-face meetings, six electronic communications sessions and one study tour.

This will be a pilot effort by our Fruit & Vegetable Excel Team. We still have much work to do!

If you are interested in the Fruit & Vegetable Team or their new program, please contact Ron at the ABE Center for more information. 1-800-358-4678

Upcoming Managing For Success Workshops

Equine ManagementExcel

Autumn 1998

Autumn 1998

Nov. 3,10,17

Jan 8, 15, 22

Feb. 11, 12 & 13

Franklin/Hocking Counties

Chillicothe, OH

Licking County

Ottawa, OH (Putnam County)

OSU-Columbus Campus

-Please submit story ideas, new workshop dates, team activities or articles for the next Teacher to Teacher to Eric at 614-292-6432 or barrett.90@osu.edu.

All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veterans status. Issued in furtherance of Cooperative Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the US Department of Agriculture, Keith L. Smith, Director, Ohio State University Extension.