This week on Ruminate This, we talk with Dr. Kevin Ziemba, Global Support Specialist at STgenetics, about the essentials of proactive farm management and its role in building a sustainable farm team. Dr. Ziemba shares how moving beyond constant crisis management to building a team-oriented culture centered around compliance and problem-solving, is critical to farm success. Of utmost importance is clear communication, where everyone on the team, not just the owners and managers, understands the “why.” Tune in to hear how effective farm management encompasses not just facilities, processes, and equipment, but fundamentally starts with the people. By fostering the right culture and ensuring the right people are in the right roles, farms can unlock their genetic and nutritional potential, leading to greater success and sustainability.
Kevin Ziemba is the Global Support Specialist, where he and his team provide genetic support and resources to dairy producers. Born and raised on a dairy, Kevin has spent his entire life in genetics. Kevin graduated from Cornell University where he earned a master’s degree in quantitative genetics. Kevin is a very active Cornell alumna, returning to Cornell to guest lecture the Dairy Genetics class each year and has coached the Cornell dairy judging team for the past 9 years. In 2021 his team won the National Intercollegiate Dairy Judging Contest at Madison.
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Scott Zehr
Hello everybody. Welcome to Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. I’m your host Scott Zehr. And today, once again, I’m going to be joined by Dr. Kevin Ziemba, from Sexing Technologies. Kevin, thank you for taking time out of your day to talk with us. Today we’re going to be talking a little bit more on management. On farm management, overcoming challenges, whether it’s environmental or personnel. There’s a lot of things that management encompasses on a dairy. And, I look forward to this conversation with Kevin.
If you missed our episode, we talked earlier. Kevin and I have a little bit of history and from our, our time as coworkers together in a previous life. And, Kevin, I’ve been hearing you tell the story of management for a long time now.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah. I guess you’d say we all work in industry, right? And we have our specialties, whether it be genetics in my case, nutrition, that work, you, you name it. But it really comes down to how that farm builds a strategy and team to get the management done. And, management can mean a lot of things, right? Like it can mean task, it can mean vision, and it can mean culture. And it can mean all three if you let it.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. I… you mentioned “team” and you know, one of the things I, I think about and I, I was going to make reference to Vince Lombardi here. But I’m, I’m going to go a different direction because boy, the right people can make such a difference. The right people in the right seat. And have you ever read a book called the boys in the boat?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Zehr
The, you know, it’s, it’s one thing to have everybody, you know, we have these cliched sayings, right? “Oh, we need everybody in the same boat.” Well, you need everybody in the same boat rowing the same direction.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. Yeah, personnel is such a big part of it. In a perfect world, Kevin, let’s just imagine our perfect farm, right? We have the right people in the right seat. The right facilities. You mentioned in a previous episode, there’s certain challenges that are going to arise. Management challenges. And that’s really, regardless of your, you know, whether you have the right people or the right facilities, whatever. So what are some of those things?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
I mean, you know, you can put it in, in a lot of different aspects, right? So, I call it playing from behind. There’s a lot of dairies that I, I, we get the opportunity to visit and it’s not a negative. It’s just that they’re playing from behind. They’re always managing issues after they happen.
So it’s like we go put fires out, whether it be, you know, all of a sudden we had an issue with, you know, salmonella doubling in calves as an example. Or our reproductive protocol isn’t working. Or yeah, that’s my favorite, of course…
Scott Zehr
That’s mine too.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
And, uh, you know, I always, I always, I’ll go into the little segue on that.
I always love it when you go onto a dairy and they’re, they’re like, well, our repro program’s not working. And they tell you that they use either precinct off sync or double out of sync or whatever. It doesn’t matter. And they want you to fix it like on the spot and and at the end of the day or change better yet change, Right? Ao we’re gonna change. And what’s always fascinating to me, I can take that step back, right?
Because I’m not living in that bubble.
Scott Zehr
Right.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
And that’s, that’s, it’s, it’s going to sound like I’m being negative on these farms. I’m not, I’m not. It’s more sometimes that everybody needs to step out of their own bubble.That they’ve isolated themselves in and then look at it from a different perspective. And I think we, we see often on other dairies that, you know, it doesn’t matter the actual protocol.
It comes back to my favorite word that starts with a C, and, and it’s compliance and then the culture that goes into creating that compliance. So I’m, I’m segwaying off a little bit, but, that’s one of those management factors. So I always think that, you know, whether it’s a nutritional insult that’s coming to the, the, the cows, whether it’s a health oriented issue that’s coming up with cows, you know, transition cows, etcetera, they’re playing from behind.
They’re trying to manage something after it’s occurred, as opposed to having, I don’t want to say preventative, but almost like, guideline, right? This is how we’re going to manage this type of strategy. This is the methodology, I guess you would say, that we’re going to investigate and, and come up with solutions, to make that issue, resolve itself or, or we resolve it for them. Or for the issue.
So I really think it doesn’t matter necessarily, you know, in my opinion, what, what type of you know, issue it is a management issue and that can be people too, right?
Scott Zehr
Of course sure.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Like the employees themselves, but it comes back to building team and culture around problem solving, you know. And that sounds simple, but it’s, it takes the right person in the right seat you know managing the aspect of coaching that that whole implementation process.
Scott Zehr
You know, you mentioned, problem solving and, you know, talking about playing from behind. So when I hear the term playing from behind, I think of reactive problem solver. And I’m going to go back to my days of breeding cows. One of the first customers I ever picked up. Let’s call him Ken. He goes, boy, I hate the word reactive. I like things that begin with pro. I like professional. I like proactive.
You know, he’s being, being kind of funny, but, but you’re absolutely right about living in the bubble. And I think, I think a lot of times, and it’s, it’s cliched. I’ve, you know, other people have said this before, but it’s like walking onto a dairy that maybe you haven’t been on in six months and you go, uh, let’s say you’re looking at the, at the dry cow pen. “Hey, you got a lot of cows here that are over conditioned.”
Really? We didn’t notice that. And it’s tough. You know, when you’re in the heat of the battle, I see it in my own businesses, as an entrepreneur. When you’re in the heat of the battle to see, you know, it’s one thing to see where the fire is. And that’s what we’re focused on, but how did it start?
And I think that’s an advantage that guys like you have. Guys like myself, when we walk onto a dairy, we have that advantage of, we don’t have to actually go play in the fire. We can just kind of take a step back and just start diagnosing, okay, how did this start? Where did it actually come from and why? And once you solve the why, right? And that’s the proactive part of it and… yeah, I think that’s, that’s huge.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah. And you just said something that’s really important, the why. And the why is not just… So like your consulting team on a dairy has to be embraced to, to help discover that why. There’s a few dairies out there that kind of get defensive about, about being challenged.
Right. And, you have to build a little bit of that culture of accepting, you know, some type of, I don’t want to call it criticism. But, you know, constructive criticism, as long as it’s presented correctly, like professional, you know? And I think the other part of that is on the flip side, the why behind things has to be brought forth from the management of the farm to the team.
Scott Zehr
Oh, absolutely.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
You know, I, I’ve been on a lot of farms, and I’m sure you have, Scott, and many of the people on the call, where, you know a, a management decision or group decision is made on a change, right? And then when that change is brought forth to the employee base that’s going to be implementing the task side of the change, there’s no explanation of the why.
And when you don’t build buy-in, you fail. And it is the most important thing that I think sometimes gets missed is the discussion of the why, so that folks can really, gravitate because then they become vested, right? And when they become vested, they become valued. And when they become valued, you know, they’re part of the solution process. So I think those two aspects are, you know, tied right into each other for sure.
Scott Zehr
Well, and I, I don’t mean to sound like I work for the guy, but this isn’t the first episode that this has come up. And I’m just going to say it again. If you haven’t read “Start With WHY” by Simon Sinek.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yes. Oh, yes.
Scott Zehr
Go go read it. It’s been out there long enough. If if you haven’t read the book email me and I’ll send you a copy on audible on me like. Again, people don’t buy what you do. They don’t buy how you do it. They buy why you do it. And, It’s the golden circle people. It really is and…
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
You know, with that, that’s credible, ‘cause I’m a Simon Sinek fan. But so someone will read that and I’ve had this conversation or have it presented to them or, listen to it. And, they’ll say, well, that only applies to sales.
Scott Zehr
No.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
We sell every second of the day. Like selling is the act of communicating a concept or idea to create buy-in. No matter what it is. It’s not always monetary. It’s conceptual. And you know, we need to have more of that. So yes. Amen to that statement.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. That is a wonderful, wonderful book to apply to sales strategies, for sure. But if you think that it’s just about business or just about sales, I’m going to say, you probably don’t know your personal why.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah.
Scott Zehr
And if you want to, if you really want to challenge yourself, and this is a serious, I’m giving this option to people. So I went through the book and we spent some time as a group at Agrarian a couple of years ago. Our director of operations, Nick Bradley, and it just kind of helped us each craft our personal why.
And then since then, you know, I’ve spent time on it. I’ve worked on it. I’ve thought about it. I’ve reread the book multiple times. And so, you know, my, why. Why I do what I do, Kevin? It’s not, it’s not to, you know, it has nothing to do with sales. I manage sales across 23 states. That’s what I do, right?
But it, it really is, to, to use my God given and acquired talents. To make people laugh, challenge the status quo and help other people find their success in life. That applies to my children. That applies to my wife, my friends. And what I’ve learned even more recently is that applies to myself.
And another ep, in another episode, you made a comment that if you take care of the cows, they’ll take care of you. And, the only addition to that, that I would make is, I a hundred percent believe it is if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others. And others means people, others means cows.
So, you know, if you’re listening to this, make sure you’re taking care of yourself too. And whatever that looks like physically, mentally. Man, Kevin, this, this went a different direction than where we started out, but I think it’s important to bring that into it because even just recently, you know, I was on a dairy and I, I asked them the question and they’re going through some struggles. I just said, why, why are you dairy farmers?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
What was the answer?
Scott Zehr
You hear that silence? That was the answer.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Okay. I knew you were going to do that.
Scott Zehr
You know, if I, if I had a sound bite here for crickets, that’s what I would, that’s what I’ve done. And if you don’t understand why you’re doing it, how do you implement management strategies to mitigate that risk involved with heat stress, mycotoxins, personnel. How do you do it? Interesting.
So, okay. Kevin, from the consultative standpoint, how do we approach difficult conversations, with clients or with people that we encounter? You said that some people are more open than others to constructive criticism. But in reality, we have to deal with all types of people. And sometimes we have to actually break that shell off people. Kind of manually. So how do we do that?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
That’s it… I have a technique and I’m not saying it’s the right technique, but it works for me. So like, I learned when I was probably in my thirties, that I’m a direct communicator. The scouts like shocking. And, sometimes my directness is, seen as assertive or aggressive, like I’m fully self aware of that. And, sometime it’s done intentionally, right? Like to create a reaction. But as I’ve gotten more mature, and I use the word older, as I’ve gotten more mature, I’ve really…
Scott Zehr
30s was just a couple of days ago, right?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Sure, Scott. Sure. I realized that that level of, how I communicate has to adapt and I have to read the room. And being able to assess, what type of, you know, using personalities like, like disc will use as an example. If I’m talking to an SC who is a very analytical yet slightly reserved and looking at things and needs to process, my presentation methods going to be different because my assertive direct tone is going to be deemed is slightly offensive, right?
So, we call this relationship tension, right? So anytime we’re working with a customer, a client, or anyone that we’re trying to enact change, there’s going to be relationship tension. And the best thing to do is try to deescalate that relationship tension. So what I’ve done, and it’s worked very effectively for me, is asking for permission.
And almost saying upfront, like, “Hey, I know that I’m here to look at some things and go through whether it be like a walkthrough audit or looking at the repro protocols. But, I have some things that I’d like to share with you that I think could be implemented.” And basically ask, you know, “are you comfortable with me, bringing up some items that could be changes.” And a lot of times what you realize in that moment, so it’s two things. One, you ask for permission, so then they can say yes or no, right?
So obviously you’re there, so they’re going to say yes. But what you see is by them feeling like it’s now in their hands to grant you permission. Their vulnerability changes, completely. Their attention decreases and it’s more of a conversation so you know i’ll even preface after i’ve been given permission that permission, I’ll be like, “Hey, I’m known to be a pretty direct communicator. I’m going to apologize for that upfront and afterwards. But if I’m going too fast or I’m saying something that doesn’t vibrate with you, go, you go ahead and slow me down.”
And, that has really, worked credibly well because what I’ve done is actually made myself vulnerable as well, right? Like I deescalated myself and almost, apologized or given myself permission to be, you know, forthright in my, discussion. So I think that can really help that. However you, find that place to analyze what the relationship tension is and then navigate through it so it becomes a conversation. I think those are the key pieces in communicating, you know, change.
Scott Zehr
That is a lot to unpack. And I, I think a big part of what you just said, your technique is, is transparency.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yes.
Scott Zehr
You know, it’s, like we’re just going to be very clear with each other, you know. And this is the way I am. Sorry about it. But, I just want you to go up front. Like, I’m not going to hold anything back. You know, if you give me permission to talk, I want you to know up front that like, “Hey, here to help.” And obviously the, but I think the transparency part of that, how it serves you well a lot.
And I, see that in, how I approach certain situations to where, you know, you get called in and I like to mention how their time is valuable, right? In a roundabout way, just kind of bring it up that, you know, you’re taking time out of your day to talk to me and I appreciate that. And I’m doing the same, right? and I, I really want you to be successful. Yeah.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
That’s key. Yeah.
Scott Zehr
But if you don’t want it more than I want it, it’s not going to work.
Unfortunately I, there’s been some times where, yeah, I mean you spend a lot of time trying to help somebody and they just don’t want it as bad as you want it. But boy, when those two things align it’s like magic happens. When you get somebody that really, really wants to, to serve that client that really wants to be there for them and help them be successful and they want it more than you do, oh my gosh. The sky’s the limit.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah. That’s when the change and implementation go hand in hand. And it goes back to that, that culture. And it’s usually that culture is founded by a person in the driver’s seat that wants to build it. Right. But, one other thing that I think is kind of important in the discussion about how to bring forth those tough conversations.
You always have to, at the end of whatever it is that you’re presenting to that client, customer, you know, relationship, ask for feedback. And give them the full reign to respond to what you’ve, you’ve said. And, ask them, you know, what are your thoughts on that? And let them be honest and listen.
Cause if you always come in with that perspective of, I’m gonna, I’m already thinking about what it is that they’ve said. And I, I now have the desire to answer, I’ve already stopped listening, even though I might let them speak, I’ve stopped listening to what they’ve said. And that’s, that’s incredibly important because you can’t build buy-in without trust. You don’t build trust without listening. So…
Scott Zehr
That’s huge. And, this is applicable on so many levels, whether it’s personal, whether it’s, professional, the client, employer to employee. That’s huge. The reeling our conversation in, as we wind down, back to this management topic. Epigenetics.
So I had a chance to interview Dr. Britt, not that long ago, Dr. Jack Britt. And I, I really liked the way he just kind of described epigenetics in one sentence, and that is anything that happens that inhibits the expression of that gene.
So aside from say environmental factors like heat stress or cold stress or, you know, whatever, but thinking about farm level, what are some things that you tend to notice on dairies that they can improve on?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Well, I think the foundation, the key piece and that’s calf management.
Scott Zehr
Oh yeah.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Yeah, we, we build a genetic baseline. and we all know, the, the concept that, you know, if you’ve got a calf that’s had three, treatment episodes, the performance, as a, lactating cow is compromised, right? Like that’s fully where everybody gets that. So the whole concept of everything has to focus on reducing the percentage of animals that have some type of morbidity that insults their ability to express their genetic potential.
And I think that’s the most key driver. And that comes from management care facilities, everything in the nutritional realm, you know, even that first, dose of colostrum, right? So everything is setting up the, the genetics to express themselves. And I think that’s, you know, really key. And all of the other aspects, you know, whether it be fresh cows, transition issues, whether it be heat stress, cold stress, all of those things are, paramount as well.
But I think it all, all begins, you know, with that calf. And I, I do wanna like, cause I think there’s a lot of folks that are gonna… I have a lot of conversations. We do sexed in beef models. Like that’s a pretty normal procedure on a lot of our dairies.
Scott Zehr
Right.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
And we make the right number of heifer root calf replacements.
We’d be read the bottom to beef. And I, I’m going to put in a plug for genomic testing because genomic testing, creates the accuracy portion of that decision making process, which is part of our breeders equation. And, that’s incredibly important, you know. And, and we get our miss ID cleaned up, we get our, treat profiles, identified and we get our recessives and, and haplotypes that have deleterious effects identified and managed. Okay?
So we have, you know, this genetic or genomic platform for these animals. And then someone will say to me, well, I don’t believe the genomics and I want to decide based on any three Oh five or some relative value, that always drives me nuts. We could have a whole nother podcast on relative value.
So they’ll, they’ll make some type of decision making process of who should get sex and who should get beef. And what happens is we then are identifying animals that have high genetic progress. But had some type of epigenetic insult that compromised their ability to express those genes. And now we’ve deemed that animal as a poor contributor to society.
And then they do not get the ability to transmit their genetics to the next generation. And that is an epic fail. It is an epic fail. And I love these herds to death that love managing good cows. And they say, “Oh, my best cows, like how they perform.” You’re going to have deviators. You’re always going to have deviators. You’re going to have animals that have lower genetics that produce higher.
That does not mean that they will transmit those genes to the next generation. That’s what genetics measures, it does not measure performance, it measures the ability to transmit. And so, I really caution people, like, we know that genomics are accurate. Like, and especially in today’s world. I listened to a podcast that was given by a producer here recently that I respect, immensely, and it milks 20,000 cows and big into genetics, and that person was talking about the fact that the, the level of, he was tracing his genetics in his herd and then created a correlation to actual performance.
And he made a statement that like 10 to 15 percent deviated. Either high or low. But we, we still had 65 to 85 percent that fit right exactly where we want. And everybody likes to talk about outliers and use outliers as the identifier of why. Well, we talked a lot about why, but we forget about the 65 to 85 percent that hit what our target was supposed to be. Right?
And so I think it’s really important that when we think about epigenetics, when we think about genetics, that we use that, those tools to make decision making process. And, and just because our cow that’s compromised may not last in the herd, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have the ability to transmit some really cool genetics to the next generation if that animal is put under a better management platform to allow her to express those genes. So hopefully that makes sense because it really should. It really, really should.
Scott Zehr
I think it does. And I, if I were to add anything to that, it’s the notion that utilizing a unit of beef semen on any dairy cow is a death sentence for that cow. You laugh, but it’s, that’s… That conversation happens. It’s like, well, this cow is making 40,000 pounds of milk. We have to get another half for calf out of her. Yeah. But she ranks in the bottom third of your herd for the index that you feel is most important for you. “Yeah, but she’s making 40,000 pounds of milk.”
Well, she just didn’t have scours as a calf. She didn’t get pneumonia as a heifer. She’s doing what she should do and maybe even a little bit above. Excellent nutrition, good management, so on. But, folks, breeding a cow to a shot of beef semen is not a death sentence. It’s just…
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
Hopefully you get a chance to do it four times.
Scott Zehr
Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
I mean, not four times in one lactation, but four times to get more lactation.
Scott Zehr
I think that’s actually a great note to end this conversation on is really, you know, think about those genetics because it’s only 50 percent of the conversation, right? It’s having the right genetics, it’s having the right animals, it’s identifying that, right? But then there’s a whole next part of it of, of taking care of them. Kevin, I’m so glad you brought the calves into the conversation.
I’m going to say I will drive the bandwagon as the guy, if somebody’s got to do it, I’ll, I’ll drive the wagon saying we have to start spending more time talking about calf and heifer nutrition. I’m going to ask you this question, Kevin, it’s a statement that I’ve made a few times now, but if heifers in this country are no longer a commodity, why are we still, so often, treating them like a commodity? Let’s stop it. Let’s take care of them. So I’m, I applaud you for bringing that into the conversation. Awesome.
But yes, it’s still only about half of that conversation, right? It’s, it’s feeding them correctly. It’s taking care of them properly. So many things go into calving. So keep, keep doing what you’re doing, man. Keep spreading the gospel on that. And, cause it’s, it’s how we’re going to get from point A to point B.
It’s how we’re going to, you know, get eight, nine pounds of components in the future. It’s how we’re going to milk less cows in this country and make more dairy for the rest of the world. And so, with that, Kevin, I appreciate you taking the time. Any final words you want to pass along?
Dr. Kevin Ziemba
I think it’s always really important to think about the total of what you’re doing on the farm as one big picture. And whether it be genetics, repro, management of those tools, nutrition. And then the building of the team to create success pathways, right? Because we’ve all been on dairies, we’ve all worked with dairies, we own dairies where there’s direction. And when there’s direction and focus and a goal and buy-in you, that’s a common denominator, right?
So all of these tools are great. We need to implement them. We use technology. We need to adapt to the changing industry. But you have to build that baseline within the organization that you’re working with to create that success pathway, and that all of it ties together. And if you see it that way, if you can just envision it that way, you’re going to set yourself up for success.
Scott Zehr
Amen. Love it. Dr. Kevin, it’s still, it still feels weird calling you Dr. Kevin when I’ve known you as long as I have. But Kevin, thank you for jumping on Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions. I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon at some point. And, for the rest of you, we will see you again in two weeks. Thanks everybody.
