Barbara/Howard
Doster
Age 74, 8/1/07
Contents
A. Why we Learn, Teach and Coach
B. What we Learn, Teach, Coach
C. Understand, Predict, Act
D. Assignments We Use
E. At Our Age & Stage
F. Our Pay Policy
G. About Us
H. At Home…
A.
Why we Learn, Teach and Coach
Learning, teaching, coaching
is more fun than our other alternatives.
Until we identify,
understand, and use
a better way for deciding and doing,
we’ll offer to teach you our problem-solving
processes
as you also learn to use our more formal management
information system.
Then, we’ll help you learn to teach others.
Management skills are learned, or not learned.
Some of you are better at doing everything than we
are,
and we enjoy studying your performances.
A few persons are better than others at almost everything,
But these persons can’t do everything.
They specialize and do their comparative advantage.
Each of us has a comparative advantage for doing
something.
The total value of
goods and services is maximized
when each of us does our comparative advantage.
That’s why we say,
“Do what you do best
And trade for the rest.”
Because of our interest, training, and experience,
We have a
comparative advantage
for teaching management
skills.
B. What We Learn, Teach,
Coach
Management is the problem-solving process
Of deciding what to do
And doing it,
As we use what we now have
To get what we now want most.
As manager of our resources,
We retain and use them
Until we think
We’ll be better off
By trading one of them.
Then, we decide and trade.
Written or unwritten,
We all have plans for using our resources.
We make a decision
Whenever a surprise occurs,
Whenever observed performance
Is different from expected.
No one wants to waste resources.
With about the same resources
Some persons realize more rewards.
We call them better managers.
Management skills are learned.
Perhaps you can learn,
And,
Then, teach others.
Perhaps we can coach you.
This is how we manage our mind/muscle, relationships
& material resource inventory.
Here’s the outline of the problem-solving process
We learn, teach and coach.
Identify the symptoms and cause/reason
For each problem/opportunity.
Test alternative solutions/plans
And predict their likely consequences.
Decide and Act.
Then, monitor performance for the next surprise.
(When expected performance and actual performance
are the same, there is no surprise, and, no decision
to make.)
Start Where You Are.
Everyone starts every day
Where you now are
With what you now have
And what you now want most.
Our job is to help you
Identify where you now are
What you now have
And what you now want most.
Then, we help you learn our problem-solving process.
As you use our more formal management information
system…
Perhaps with another couple you don’t compete for
land with,
but do respect professionally and like personally.
D. Assignments We
Use With You
For all family members, & others on management team.
Write assignments one thru seven of B/H’s standard questions.
Do this alone. Discuss it with no one.
Give your answers to Barbara/Howard. Thanks.
Later, they’ll visit with you privately.
First Assignment
What is B/H’s job description? Who are they working for?
What does he/she want to happen as a result of their teaching, and, your learning?
Put out a fire, or reduce future fires? Which? Both? Neither? What?
Second Assignment
List your problems /opportunities.
Then, B/H will interview each of you privately
Before facilitating a joint meeting.
As they learn where you are,
They’re looking for where your team can reach
consensus now,
Versus where they can help you test more
alternatives.
Third
Assignment
Everyone has, or will soon get, a job description.
What is yours? What do you want it to be? When?
Fourth
Assignment
IF, the manager were to die tomorrow,
THEN, who do you think would inherit which
resources?
THEN, what would you be expected to do?
Fifth Assignment
If, the manager were to become unable to manage,
THEN, who do you think would become manager of what,
And what would your job be?
A great coach teaches many IF/THEN plans.
B/H want to help your team develop many IF/THEN
plans.
Assignment Six
Make lists of your business, family, and personal
goals.
Rank each list.
Write the
most important first; next important, second; etc.
Then, indicate when you want to accomplish each
goal.
Expect to revise this list repeatedly, from now on.
Remember,
You are manager of your mind/muscle/material
resources.
Everyone prioritizes
how they will use what they now have
to get what they now want most.
By sharing at least some of your goals with your
manager,
You likely increase your opportunity for working and
living
together effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably.
Also remember a great manager is a great teacher/coach.
Learn
and do as much as you can to support him/her.
Until you have better opportunities elsewhere, a great manager
would rather have associates who make great contributions,
even if they stay only a few years.
That’s almost always better for everyone than having other associates who stay a long time.
Assignment
Seven
Answer the questions in Myers-Briggs Personality Traits
Test.
A qualified Myers-Briggs Tester, Barbara will help
you
understand how to use your personality preferences
to
communicate more effectively, efficiently, and
enjoyably,
in your relationships with others
with similar, and with different preferences.
Assignment Eight, Nine, Ten are for the person
hiring B/H.
Assignment
Eight
Write who contributes what resources& list how
they are paid.
If you farm together, write your business
dissolution plan.
Assignment
Nine
A. Bring copies
of a current cost and market balance sheet.
B. Write how
you acquired your material resources;
How much by inheritances, by inflation, by
earnings?
Assignment
Ten
Write a short narrative of family and farm history.
Do you get the idea B/H listen a lot?
Get it, and share a lot.
Mostly, our job is to ask right questions, in right
ways,
as we teach you our problem-solving process, and,
help you use our formal management information
system.
We want you to learn it while teaching it to others.
Do count on us to ask
you to consider multiple alternative solutions,
and, to help you test their likely consequences.
We don’t
give legal, tax, or marketing advice.
We do encourage you to get such advice.
By interest, education, and experience,
We are qualified
to help you learn the management skills
and the farm economic principles we teach.
Assignment
Eleven
Jointly, we’ll decide which MIS assignments to do
next,
after grading your first ten, and facilitating a
group session.
Ask H about related/unrelated persons farming
together,
farm leases,
cropping systems, and machinery economics.
Ask B about personnel management and leadership
coaching.
Alternative Assignments Eleven, etc.
11a. Read H’s text, then say when you’ll trade
machinery,
why you’ll switch crop seed, fertility recipes,
rotations, tillage.
11b.What’s the right rent for me?
11c. Study H’s 7-minute “Test before you Invest”
speech
that he’s given 900 times in 12 countries.
Who is on my list to somehow use one set of big
machinery with me?
Why? How? When?
11d. What alternatives ways should I consider:
for farming
with others?
11e. What ways should I consider
for getting the older generation out and the newer
in?
11f. How can I effectively, efficiently, enjoyably,
nurture relationships with my landowner’s kids?
11g.Who is on my list
to perhaps serve on my peer advisory board?
Who are the couples we respect professionally, like
personally,
but don’t compete with for land,
And would likely meet 3-4 times for at least two
years
As, together, we learn to use and teach
B/H’s problem-solving process
And their more formal management information system,
Before we then start teaching the processes
To other farm couples
We respect professionally, like personally,
but don’t compete with for land?
11h. etc, a bunch of others as, together, we’ll
choose.
E.
At Our Age And Stage
Now 74, and retired, we enjoy working together professionally
for the first time.
Once we get acquainted,
We may encourage you to participate in the
28th Annual Purdue Farming Together
Workshop
and/or
the 41st Annual Purdue Top Farmer Crop
Workshop
both of which Howard founded/co-founded
and coordinated for many years.
We might work with you;
before, during, and/or after the workshops.
Perhaps in fall ‘07
We’ll start teaching you and others
how to use our new budget.
We expect you to test the financial consequences
Of multiple alternatives; sometimes, multiple times,
daily.
If the software is as useful as we think
We predict someone will teach more persons how to
use it
Than the 7,000 mostly corn belt farmers
I, and my colleagues taught to test alternative
Crop rotations, machine sizes, tillage systems,
and/or farm size
Using the Purdue Linear Program computer budget
I co-authored, and will still use for those
questions.
How’s that to tempt you?
We’ll not say more.
We want to be first on the market with our new
features.
Then, we want you to learn
as you teach others.
What fun!
Barbara Is President/Treasurer of Farm Partners,
Inc,
Our Teaching Company.
We teach for free,
Or,
For $1,000 net per day.
You decide
When
You become a paying client.
Recently, clients in eight states
Paid from $1,000 to $6,000.
Our typical client pays $3,000, plus expenses.
We teach for fun.
When you pay,
You do the homework.
You learn more.
We work less.
We all have more fun.
Do what you do best.
Trade for the rest.
That’s what we do.
We’ll recycle your money.
Land Grants OSU and PU get one/third.
Three churches get one/third.
Our
Come there for a 23-hour
workshop with us!
ABOUT HOWARD, Purdue Professor Emeritus,
son of a
Long ago, I learned
I’m not good enough
with my corn-growing skills
to out-bid others for rental land.
Long ago, I also
learned
I’m not good enough to help below average people much.
Long ago, I started using my resources
where I do have a comparative advantage.
I have a comparative advantage for helping the best get better.
Other persons could have done a better job than I
Creating/coordinating the Purdue Top Farmer Crop
Workshop,
and the senior How To Go Home and Farm With Dad
Class.
But, I did it, for almost forty years!
I repeatedly made my best better.
You and many others found my help useful to you.
You even recognized my performances with two nice
awards;
Honorary Master Farmer, and Distinguished and
Meritorious Service to American Agriculture.
As
a management mentor, accredited farm manager,
and
ag consultant, I teach our problem-solving processes
as
I specialize in farming together, farm leasing,
crops
& machinery economics.
ABOUT BARBARA,
Former
Director, Undergraduate Programs,
A
student
body, and soon to be named 1956 Outstanding OSU Senior Woman,
when
she married Howard, a drafted Navy Seaman, in February.
After graduating in June, with honors,
B became a part-time bank teller on a
They saved half their $200 monthly income,
and used it as H later went to graduate school.
After raising their four kids, B took a no-promotion job
as a
part-time academic advisor in the
Three years and an MS degree later, B replaced three
persons;
an Assistant Dean, a PhD, and the senior advisor.
As Director of Undergrad Programs, with a 16-person
staff,
B went on to earn just about every Distinguished
Service Award.
B now presents four Barbara G. Doster Positive
Attitude Scholarships,
using income from an endowment funded by her students and her sons.
In January 07, B again gave the welcome address
to the top 100 Purdue management students
at the now fifth Biennial Barbara G. Doster
Leadership Forum in
Her two current Purdue grandchildren participated.
As a leadership coach, B will inspire you
as you improve your personnel management skills.
She’ll inventory your Myers-Briggs Personality Traits preferences
as she helps you learn how to communicate
more effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably with
each other.
A perceptive administrator, listener, and body language observer,
B coordinates our sessions effectively, efficiently,
and enjoyably.
She asks the right questions, the right way, and
helps us feel at ease,
even when you have tough decisions to make.
When not working with farmers in eight states,
B and H split time between their near-campus
and
their
Including family, friends, and clients, they fed 500 guests there in 06.
They enjoy hosting clients for a 23-hour weekend
workshop there.
When are you coming, perhaps with another couple?
In 1818, H’s Virginia Quaker g-g-g grandparents
brought 22 just-freed slaves
to make bricks for their home,
now on National Register of Historic Places,
because it was a stationhouse on the UGRR.
Find their SW Ohio home on the NW edge of
at 39.326 n.
84.01 w. 800 h.
Their five acres, surrounded on three sides by the
10,000-acre park,
includes a 12-spring-fed lake with stocked bass and blue gills.
A state park bikeway and a state park canoeing river
are down the hill on the fourth side.
Other…
H
is past president and B is former elder of
B
is still in WL Rotary, bible study, and bridge club.
H
still plays softball, and is into genealogy.
They’re
writing a DVD with digital pictures;
“Around
The Park,
Who
Were Your Ancestors, and Why Did They Come Here?”
Their
four kids and spouses have grades from 24 different universities,
and
17 degrees, including 7 from Purdue.
They
enjoy playing ball and doing art with their eight grandchildren.
H frequently reminds his 104-year old mom that he’s
not yet in the older generation.