Feedstuffs in Focus
Feedstuffs in Focus is a weekly look at the hot issues in the livestock, poultry, grain and feed industries. Join us as we talk with industry influencers, experts and leaders about trends and more. Feedstuffs in Focus is produced by the team at Feedstuffs.
Feedstuffs in Focus
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A lot of farm problems look like “people problems” until you zoom in and see what’s really happening: unclear expectations, mismatched communication styles, and feedback that never gets said out loud. We sit down with Dr. Brent Sexton of Suidae Health and Production to talk about communication on farm and why it stays challenging even when we’re always on our phones, computers, and email. From quick instructions in the barn to high-stakes decisions in livestock production, the message you send is only half the story. The other half is how it lands.
We dig into self-awareness as a practical leadership tool and why understanding your own tendencies can change everything about how you manage, coach, and collaborate. Personality assessments like DISC and Myers-Briggs are not magic, but they can highlight default patterns such as urgency, intensity, or a need for more data before acting. When you know your style, you can adapt your approach to the person you’re talking to, build rapport faster, and reduce friction inside farm teams and animal agriculture operations.
We also get real about feedback and how to make it usable. Critical feedback is rarely comfortable, but avoiding it is costly. We talk about formal reviews, in-the-moment coaching, and the underrated habit of asking for feedback before small issues become big ones. From there we tackle two major pressure points: language barriers and cultural differences, plus digital communication where tone is hard to read and a short “K” can spiral into assumptions.
If you care about clearer farm communication, stronger teamwork, and better day-to-day execution across animal health and nutrition, hit subscribe, share this with a manager or crew leader, and leave a review telling us the communication challenge you want to solve next.
Opening And Sponsor
SPEAKER_01Tips, tricks, and lessons learned. Competence to communicate with your production team and others. Welcome to Feeds of Dumps and Focus. Taking a look at the big issues affecting the lungs of poultry grain and animal feed industries. I'm your host. The tempest that a feeds of dumpsted and focus is monitored by United Animal Health, a leader in animal health and nutrition. You can learn more about United Animal Health and how they're working to advance animal science worldwide by visiting their website at united at nh.com. Joining our Ann Hence to share good communication tips is Dr. Brent Sexton of Sudei Health and Production.
SPEAKER_02Communication on farm. I mean, is this an ongoing challenge? I mean, we we're on our phones, we're on our computers all the time, but are we still having a problem on farm communicating with each other?
SPEAKER_00Uh it it certainly is an issue with communication on farm, and I'd even go so far as out of farm too, right? We think of communication when we're presenting to a group, we're speaking to an individual, but that's that's everything. It's all the emails, the phone calls, the text messages, um, the nonverbal cues when you're in the same room, all of that stuff goes into communication. So it is a challenge on farm, it's a challenge off farm, and it's a challenge everywhere in between.
SPEAKER_02So you talk about tools to understand yourself. Why is that so critical to communicating with your staff?
SPEAKER_00You as an individual are one half of the communication process, right? There's you and there's your audience. So uh if you fail to look at yourself, if you fail to think of how you're impacting the any shortcomings in your communication or things like that, you you're missing half the equation, right? It's it's looking at poor performance and not assessing the the breeding sow, right? If it's not just the boar, it's there's the sow too, you know, or or anything like that. It's it's multimodal and there's lots of of factors influencing it. So being aware of you know your communication preferences or your um maybe how you come off to others can be really impactful in helping you improve your communication or to be more effective.
SPEAKER_02You talk about the importance of assessments such as Myers Briggs or the disc personality assessment. How do these type of personality assessments help improve communication on farm?
SPEAKER_00So assessments can be a really nice way to get kind of a generalized overview of your tendencies. They are not gonna dictate how you respond in every situation, they will not uh say predict 100% how you're gonna feel or how you may come off. You know, they're not perfect by any means, but they can give you generalizations and awareness around how they can work. Um by understanding them, it can give you insights, not only just yourself, but also a lot of times on how to flex to adapt to the needs of others, or understanding how you may come off uh to others. So I am most familiar with the disc personality assessments. That's that's what some of the employers I've had over the years have have worked with, and so understanding that I'm a type D, and so I can come off as more intense or uh want to get things done really quickly, and that can be off-putting to people because there's others, you know, different personality types may not want to get rushed, they may want to have more data before they make a decision. And so being aware that not everyone thinks my the same way I do, and trying to build that relationship with them so that you understand their their needs allows you all to work to better together more seamlessly.
SPEAKER_02You're communicating at their level.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, your their level, their preference, you know, adapting yourself to others, uh and hopefully as as you build that rapport, you build that communication, um relationship with them, they're adapting to yours as well. So it it really works best when it's a two-way street between you know two or more people with a shared goal and a shared willingness to work together.
SPEAKER_02How about feedback? I mean, from the top down, maybe other staff, I mean, maybe it's not always positive. I mean, how how do you approach those conversations?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, feedback doesn't uh in fact, if you know, critical feedback is rarely comfortable. It's rarely pleasant to be told that you didn't do something as well as you'd hoped you had. Uh feedback can come in a lot of a lot of different forms, right? There can be the the scheduled kind of feedback. Think of like a an annual review or quarterly review with your supervisor. It can also come as more spontaneous from follow-up from a farm manager may tell you that, you know, boy, the the crew really liked it when you did this. And I'd also say from a feedback standpoint, asking for it, uh, especially if you can do that ahead of time, uh, they can be more thoughtful in what they're telling you, and then it it gives them an opportunity to tell you what they think you might not want to hear, and a little bit more willingness to, uh, because there it's really easy, uh, you know, especially thinking on farm where there may be differences in language and cultures. If you don't, if you're not aware, if you're not willing to accept feedback or even and seek it out, you'll never be aware of how your messages might be, you know, missing the mark.
SPEAKER_02How does self-reflection come into play here?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think of self-reflection a lot like reviewing mortality records. I can't go back and change it. But by being aware and thinking about, you know, if that number's not where I wanted it to be, what do I, what was the reason, what can we do differently, you know, that gives you a way to move forward. And so I think self-reflection is is great in the sense that it's really cheap, you know. It all you have to do is think, and and it's always so readily available. And so as long as you're honest with yourself and you do it on a frequent enough basis, uh that self-reflection can be a really good way for you to keep improving your person uh, you know, your interpersonal communication.
SPEAKER_02How do you take the information from these assessments to self-reflection and improve communication within your team?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say it's it all kind of comes with a level of give and take and an awareness that not every situation is the same, and and what worked well in one spot won't may not work well with another individual. And so I think it's just kind of the process of continual improvement, of being aware that you're not perfect and you don't have to be, but just trying to you know continue growing and then working with your team so that everyone's so that everyone feels the same way, right? So that everyone wants to get better and wants to improve, being open about when there are shortcomings, when when we did miss the mark, so that you know, again, we can all move forward together.
SPEAKER_02What do you see are the most pressing challenges or or opportunities for communication on farm?
SPEAKER_00Specifically on farm, there's uh there's really two that come to mind. One is the the language barrier and some of the differences culturally. Um there's you know, and it's really difficult as someone who doesn't share that that demographic, you know, to to think of that. You know, it just doesn't come to your mind. That's some you know, the way, you know, white Americans tend to communicate about feedback and stuff may be different than uh Hispanic farm employees or or people from other nationalities. So it's just i if you're not aware there's differences, you'll be completely oblivious to it. So being you know, that that is a a major challenge along with the language barrier. And I would say too, just the amount of uh digital information we have and then when we communicate with that, that it can be very difficult to, you know, there's there's no way to assess tone in a text message. There's no no way to to see boy, that's a really short message. Are they mad? Were they busy? Were they preoccupied? You know, what is it? So you know, things like that where you can uh it just it present prevent presents a large challenge and having that awareness that you know just because they they texted you back K doesn't mean that they're mad. Yeah, that they texted back K.
Shared Responsibility And Final Takeaways
SPEAKER_02Yep. Well I'm sure we've all gotten some of those texts and emails before it and it doesn't matter what you know nationality, but it's hard to read into those sometimes, like you said, the tone. Uh what any key takeaways, final thoughts to leave our audience when it comes to communication?
SPEAKER_00I would say that you know effective communication is everybody's job. And so we should all have a shared interest in you know working together to to communicate better. And so it really it always communication, there's always two parties involved, communicator and and then the audience that's receiving it, whether it's one or two hundred or ten thousand people, and so just being aware of how you you know, starting with yourself and then working to with your audience to continue building that relationship and building that level of comfort and and familiarity can just really go a long way to you know providing better communication for everyone.
SPEAKER_02Dr. Brent Sexton, Sudei Health and Production, thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_00Yep, it is my pleasure. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01This episode of Feedstuffs in Focus has been sponsored by United Animal Health, a leader in animal health and nutrition. You can learn more about United Animal Health and how they're working to advance animal science worldwide by visiting their website at unitedanh.com. I'm Sarah Muirhiman, and you've been listening to Feedstuffs in Focus. If you would like to hear more conversations about some of the big issues affecting the lemonstone of poultry grain and animal feed industries, subscribe to this Pumetchemist on your favorite Pummed Chemist channel. Until next time, have a great day and thank you for listening.