Apply a growth mindset toward everything. This includes any mistakes or missteps that happen along the way, especially when people are learning something new. Looking at things that “go wrong” as opportunities to learn and grow in some way can be helpful for both farm leaders and their teams. It allows people to try new things in the first place. If people are worried about the leader having a negative reaction if something doesn’t go perfectly the first time, they’ll likely be reluctant in the future to initiate improvements or positive changes. They’ll just stick to the same way they’ve always done things. Encouraging people to bring ideas and improvements to the operation will be much easier if they see that if something doesn’t go perfectly right away, everyone can learn from it and simply try again.

Recognize that learning requires both planning and action. Learning something new usually requires intentional planning. Sometimes learning happens on the fly but often it means thinking ahead of time about what the farm needs and then planning for how to grow our skills in those areas. As the farm’s leader you might take inventory of where your operation could benefit most from improvements. For example, maybe a leader decides that it would be beneficial for themselves to learn more about marketing and marketing tools that are available. Then, they can create a plan to intentionally learn more about marketing, such as working one-on-one with a market advisor who can also act as a coach and teacher to help the farmer increase their market knowledge and skills.

Encourage progress in learning. Learning something new – and then applying it to your farm operation – can take time. The bigger the learning or application, the longer it will likely take. But that also likely means major positive change is in the works for your operation – change that could take the farm to the next level. It could be easy to become discouraged when it seems like the learning or the progress we’d like to see is taking longer than we’d hoped. As the farm’s leader, look for ways to encourage ongoing learning and new improvements or projects that are in progress to advance the farm, even if they’re currently still in the works or haven’t yet come to fruition. That can go a long way in helping everyone stay motivated to keep learning and see the changes through.