In last week’s post, I mentioned that the farm leaders who will ride out the downturn are focused on making small, incremental improvements in their operations – gradually getting better and better over time. I want to expand on that a bit more this week and give some ideas and examples of what that looks like.

When it feels that the general business climate and ag economic environment is unfavorable for our farm operation, it’s tempting to believe everything is out of our hands. We may think that since we can’t control the biggest forces, we don’t have control over anything. Or do we?

Building better

I believe the best farm leaders keep working – bit by bit, idea by idea – when it comes to improving their farming operations and winning over time. They don’t throw up their hands or stick their heads in the sand when faced with unfavorable weather, markets or economies.

Instead, they first look at themselves as a leader and manager, searching for ways to improve. Then they look at their businesses carefully, considering different ways to become more efficient. They undertake improvements that, on the surface, may not appear like much, yet are the right areas to make big change in their operation.

Making momentum

It’s all about moving the most important “levers” within the operation – to achieve the greatest impact and movement toward success. In farming, production is the largest and most obvious lever that every farm leader must pay close attention to. Yet if we focus only on improving production, we miss out on other, perhaps less obvious, key levers to improve our business.

Here are three other “key lever” areas as you seek small improvements to make a big overall difference:

 The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Farm Futures or Farm Progress.