Make 2023 your own 'good to great' year

There’s no management problem that hasn’t been faced before. Lessons from these issues are at your fingertips on the Internet and in many publications; use them and have your best year yet, says Peter Hughes.

- Peter Hughes

Approaching the end of my schooldays, other than a vague inkling that farming would feature in some way in my future, I hadn’t the slightest idea as to the career path I’d follow.

Mentioning this to a school career guidance counsellor, she grimaced and pointed out that farmers needed business skills, and as bookkeeping wasn’t one of my chosen subjects, she strongly recommended I avoided anything in commercial farming.

“How about becoming a teacher?” she suggested.

“Why not?” I thought, and off to university I went to prepare for a teaching career.

It didn’t last long. Exposure to the wider wonders of the animal and plant kingdoms brought my embryonic agricultural instincts to the surface and, influenced by a brilliant zoology lecturer, I ended my university career with a degree in entomology.

My first job had me testing insecticides and counting insects on citrus and cotton crops, and as time moved on I found myself the boss of a small team of operators.

We were turning out results and information on new products when I discovered that one of my team members had being seriously neglectful about calibrating spray equipment.

To add insult to injury, when confronted, he became abusive in full view of his colleagues. I had to take action against him, but what?