Surely You're Joking!

The president's column in the current issue of Financial Partner magazine is about Richard Feynman. Here is the column, edited slightly for the blog:

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Everyone needs heroes. One of mine is the physicist Richard Feynman. I mention this because the feature article by Karen Murphy in this issue of Financial Partner magazine is on nanotechnology, and some consider Richard Feynman to be the father of nanotechnology.

A curious character

Richard Feynman lived from 1918 to 1988. He taught at Cornell University for five years following World War II, but spent most of his career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). One of the youngest scientists to work on the Manhattan Project, Feynman later won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1965 for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was also a member of the presidential commission that investigated the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

One reason why I like Feynman is that he told the funniest stories, some of which he captured in his book, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character. The title says a lot about the man: he loved a good joke; he treated life as an adventure; he was curious about everything; and he was certainly a character!

Room at the bottom

I also admire Feynman because he was a great teacher. He had a gift for explaining complex ideas in simple terms. One example is his famous 1959 speech, There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, which is considered to be the first talk on nanotechnology.

In his speech, Feynman proposed that manipulating individual atoms should be possible. He explored the implications of being able to do so, such as explaining how it would be possible to write all information from all the world’s books (at that time) in an amount of matter the size of a speck of dust.

His speech was so comprehensible by general audiences that Feynman later repeated it to high school physics students. This speech is easily found on the Internet: click here for the original speech and click here for the Wikipedia entry about the speech.

How not to fool yourself

Lately I’ve thought about Richard Feynman for another reason. At Yankee Farm Credit, I recently began discussing values with employees. “Integrity” is at the top of my list of important values, and my favorite discussion on integrity is from a commencement speech that Feynman gave at Caltech in 1974 titled Cargo Cult Science. This speech is also easily found on the Internet: click here for the original speech and click here for the Wikipedia entry about the speech.

Feynman advised future scientists about scientific integrity, and his advice still applies to us today. He suggested questioning our own assumptions, theories and conclusions. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

It seems like good advice to me.

UPDATE: More posts about Richard Feynman:
More Feynman
What is science?

North East Kingdom Dairy Farmer Group Meeting

On Monday March 24th the North East Kingdom Dairy Farmers Group welcomed Dr. Adam Lock at the Cow Palace Restaurant in Derby, VT from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.

Dr. Adam Lock is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Vermont. Dr. Lock was brought up on his family’s dairy farm in England, where he also received degrees from the University of Nottingham. He then moved to Cornell University where he began working as a Research Associate working with Dr. Dale Bauman’s group. Dr. Lock’s research focus involves the regulation and manipulation of ruminant lipid metabolism, allowing improvements in the efficiency of animal production and providing opportunities to design foods that are consistent with consumer perceptions and dietary recommendations.

Dr. Lock led a lively conversation as he presented his thoughts on milk, science, and marketing. He generated a lot of discussion with the group on various topics from the science behind the components of milk to marketing of raw milk. He suggested that today’s marketing is damaging to the milk market as a whole by confusing the consumer and creating incorrect assumptions for the general public. He emphasized that marketing should be less focused on scientifically unproven statements and more on unifying the dairy image against its competitors, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and bottled water. He raised some startling points, such as that for every 1 person that switches to drinking organic milk, 2 more switch off milk completely due to confusion about the product and the cost of purchasing the presumably ‘better’ product.

For more information about the North East Kingdom Dairy Farmer Group, please contact Kelly Langmaid at Yankee's Newport office. 800-370-2738

Maple Open House Weekend

Maple season officially kicks off this weekend with the 7th annual Vermont Maple Open House Weekend 3/28 - 3/30. Check out their website for a list of participating sugarhouses. Hope you all get a chance to visit!

Patronage press release

Yankee Farm Credit, ACA recently paid $3.3 million in patronage dividends to customers across three northeastern states. Yankee Farm Credit is the largest agricultural lending cooperative in Vermont, western New Hampshire and northeastern New York. This is the financial cooperative’s thirteenth consecutive annual patronage payment.

More than 1,200 farms and agribusinesses across Vermont, Clinton and Essex Counties in New York, and Coos, Grafton, Sullivan and Cheshire Counties in New Hampshire received patronage dividend checks in the mail. The dividend is paid as 100 percent cash.The average dividend check was over $2,700. For the typical member, this represented 1.20 percent of their average loan balance.

As owners of a successful cooperative, Yankee’s customers have the opportunity to financially share in that success through patronage dividends and maintaining capitalization from net earnings, rather than from upfront investment. Since the patronage program was first adopted, Yankee customers have been paid a cumulative $31 million from ownership of their cooperative.

Board Chairperson Paul E. Doton, of Barnard, VT, explains, “Yankee’s interest rates are very competitive with other lenders. If we keep credit quality sound and operate efficiently, then we have net earnings. We keep a portion of those earnings to capitalize our business and we return the rest to stockholders as patronage dividends.”

Doton added, “Yankee has an ongoing track record of trust between the cooperative and our members. Our customer-owners know that Yankee is committed to charging competitive rates and paying a significant share of earnings back as patronage dividends.”

George S. Putnam, president and CEO, added, “For all of us at Yankee, mailing patronage checks is a gratifying event. It’s much like when our customers see the fruits of their labor at harvest time. Our entire team works hard throughout the year to operate efficiently, responsibly and profitably. Returning earnings to our customer-owners as patronage dividends tells us that we succeeded.”

Putnam also commented on the teamwork that contributed to Yankee’s successful year. “Our employees focus on helping each customer get the most from our credit and financial services, whether it’s an operating line of credit, a mortgage, appraisal, or our financial services. In addition, our board of directors is exceptionally committed to supporting the industries we serve. Above all, Yankee’s customer-owners are the cornerstone of the cooperative’s continuing success.”

Yankee Farm Credit extends more than $335 million in loans from 5 local offices in its three-state service area. In addition to providing loans and leases to members, the organization also offers a full range of agriculturally specific financial services for businesses related to farming. An 11-person board of directors from the Association’s territory leads Yankee.

Values

The four entries below this entry are a related series of entries about values. These four entries are best read from the bottom up, i.e., in this order:

Integrity
Competence
Entrepreneurship
Two Greek Maxims

These entries are intended to start a discussion about values. Please feel free to join the discussion by leaving a comment.

UPDATE 8/26/08: Added a fourth value: Relationships. The order is: integrity, relationships, competence, entrepreneurship.

Two Greek Maxims

In the three blog entries below, I listed three values that I consider important for Yankee Farm Credit: integrity, competence and entrepreneurship. (UPDATE 8/26/08: Added a fourth value: relationships.) I hope you will agree that these are worthy values.

But, alas, we have a problem. It is possible for our values to conflict. What do we do when that happens?

First, let me explain why there is a conflict.

One aspect of integrity is that you must always consider the possibility that you might be wrong. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool." You must have humility; you must doubt yourself.

Now consider that one aspect of entrepreneurship is that you must believe. You must believe that your dream is possible; you must believe that things can be made better; you must believe in what you are selling; you must believe in yourself.

How can we simultaneously hold both doubt and belief within ourselves? Aren't they opposites? Don't they contradict each other?

There is something in us that abhors a contradiction. Consider the current presidential election. What is the most scandalous thing that can be said about a candidate? It is that they have been caught in a contradiction. Or--what amounts to saying the same thing but in more inflammatory language--that they are hypocrites. We are too hard on our political candidates, and we are too hard on ourselves.

Let us consider some wisdom from the ancient Greeks. At Delphi in ancient Greece there was a temple to the god Apollo. There were two maxims inscribed on this temple. The ancient Greeks thought of them as instructions from the gods to us humans. In English they are only five words:

Know Thyself: Know that you are human–not a god and not an animal. A god is immortal. An animal is mortal but does not know it. A human is mortal and knows it. Being human means being full of wonder and possibility, but it also means having all the imperfections, frailty and limitations of flesh and blood and emotions. It is likely that some element of inconsistency and contradiction is part of being human. (I am quite certain that this is true for at least the female half of the human race!)

Nothing in Excess: Many things in our world are polar opposites and yet life requires both. Night and day. Life and death. Male and female. Perhaps belief and doubt are like this, too. Perhaps it isn't possible to find complete logical consistency in everything. Perhaps, sometimes, the best we can do is to seek a good balance.

If you find yourself faced with a contradiction that cannot be logically resolved, consider the possibility that it might not be a problem to be solved. It might be an adventure to be enjoyed.

Entrepreneurship

The third item on my list of important values for Yankee Farm Credit is entrepreneurship. Like the first two values, integrity and competence, this is also something that I look for in both our customers and ourselves.

The dictionary defines an entrepreneur as "one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise." I also think of an entrepreneur as being an innovator, one who is always thinking of new things to do, or new ways to do the things we already do.

Entrepreneurs help build a better world. They do this by helping others: their customers. Our customers are providing desired food and fiber products to their customers. We at Yankee Farm Credit are providing desired credit and financial services to our customers.

What is the magic ingredient that helps entrepreneurs build a better world? It is profits. We would do well to develop a better appreciation for profits and the people who make them.

I have written in our Financial Partner magazine about the importance of entrepreneurs and profits. You can read those comments here. In that column, I introduced my three rules of entrepreneurship:

1. Reward success.
2. Learn from mistakes.
3. Don't make too many rules!

Over the years, we have highlighted on our Web site some of the entrepreneurial customers served by Yankee Farm Credit and the other northeast Farm Credit associations. You can read about some of our entrepreneurial customers here, here and here.

Hats off to the entrepreneurs of the world!

UPDATE 8/26/08: With the addition of relationships as a value, entrepreneurship moves to #4 on the list of values.

UPDATE 9/10/08: For a discussion of the difference between entrepreneurship and innovation see this blog post. Good discussion in the comments!

Competence

The next most important value to me is competence.

Like integrity, this is a value that we look for both in our customers and ourselves. Concerning customers, we ask: Are they good farmers? Are they good business managers?

Concerning ourselves, we ask: Do we know what we are doing? Do we know our job?

What is our job at Yankee, anyway? Our mission statement says that our job is to provide constructive credit and financial services to enhance the income and well-being of our customers. To do that, we need to know the ins and outs of the products and services we offer. We need to know the rules under which we can sell those products and services. (There are lots of rules! Too many.) Most importantly, we need to know how to apply our products and services to our customers' businesses so that the customer realizes a benefit.

That last item implies two important things. First, we have to know how our products and services can be used in general to help customers. What makes a constructive loan? How can good records be useful? When is crop insurance beneficial? Second, we need to understand our customers' businesses so that we can apply our products and services to their specific situations.

We know that customers are looking for solutions to their problems. They are looking for partners to help solve those problems. We at Yankee Farm Credit hope to be one of the partners that customers choose.

How does one become competent? Through constant efforts of self-improvement. We must always be learning.

Another reason for continual, lifelong learning is that the world is constantly evolving and changing. We must keep up. Just because we were competent yesterday, it does not necessarily follow that we are still competent today.

Competence brings satisfaction. There is satisfaction in helping other people. There is satisfaction in a job well done. There is satisfaction in learning new things. And competence is more likely than incompetence to bring financial satisfaction.

UPDATE 8/26/08: With the addition of relationships as a value, competence moves to #3 on the list of values.

Integrity

In this entry and the next three entries I will discuss what, to me, are the most important core values for Yankee Farm Credit.

The most important value to me is integrity. Our business is to provide credit and related financial services. Those businesses depend on honesty and trust. When we evaluate an applicant for a loan, we use the five Cs of credit: Character, Capacity, Capital, Collateral and Conditions. The most important is Character. If we cannot trust the applicant, it does not matter how strong the other four Cs are.

"Integrity" sums up in one word the concepts of honesty, trust and sound character that are important to me. We expect our customers to have integrity, and we must hold ourselves to at least the same standard.

My favorite discussion of integrity is a commencement speech by Richard Feynman at Caltech in 1974. Feynman discusses scientific integrity in this speech (he is after all giving advice to graduates of the California Institute of Technology), but the same concepts apply to banking and farming, indeed to all walks of life.

Feynman's key message is that you must leave room for doubt. You must question your assumptions, your reasoning and your conclusions. You must doubt yourself. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool." I encourage you to read the whole speech at the link above. You will find that Feynman has a good sense of humor, too.

A simple test of integrity is the Golden Rule. If you are treating others the way that you would want them to treat you, then you are most likely acting with integrity.

23rd Annual North Country Dairy Seminar

Kelly Langmaid, loan officer from the Newport office, attended the 23rd Annual North Country Dairy Seminar and Trade Show on March 19th. Guest speaker, Dr. Linda Tikofsky is the Senior Associate of Quality Milk Production Services (QMPS) for the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. She is a field veterinarian and consults with dairy farmers regarding mastitis issues for herds of all sizes.

In the morning session Dr. Tikofsky discussed high quality milk, where she explained the importance of understanding various bacteria counts and what they tell us. She discussed what the various counts indicate and how to use the data to troubleshoot problems with milk quality.

In the afternoon session Dr. Tikofsky tied into the morning session by discussing bedding choices and how they may affect mastitis and bacteria counts. She explained the pros and cons of the various bedding types and how to choose the best source for your dairy.