AgReserves is comprised of 4 separate and very different industries/commodities. There are very real, practical differences that require unique approaches to running each type of business and unique approaches to supporting them as HR, Finance, IT, Legal. A successful leader within one of those functional areas needs to be able figure out the sweet spot between corporate standardization and local adaptation. Support staff who ignore the differences and attempt to apply cookie cutter approaches will be less successful. People who have to receive permission for any variance or adaptation, or who can’t distinguish between when they can flex versus when not can feel frustrated and bogged down.
Understanding California requirements with regards to Employment Practices and other areas is helpful as the company often seeks to implement them across the board rather than have multiple processes to accommodate state by state differences. For support functions, its important to think in terms of how to make an initiative work across the industries of each of the separate divisions.
Learning how to share feedback with Senior Leadership in a way that is authentic but reasonable is important. Since many top leaders come from outside the industries the company is engaged in, it is important to share information with them that they might not be aware of, but in a way that doesn’t fail to appreciate the value they bring to the table.
The company is seeking to be a good place to work for any qualified candidate regardless of their race, gender, orientation, or beliefs. In the process, sometime people are hired or promoted that don’t have the traditionally expected backgrounds for a given role. Sometimes it matters, but often in Senior roles, it doesn’t matter as much as people think. I came from the Silicon Valley world of Intel, AMD, HP – and the company took a chance on me that I could be successful in the Cattle industry. 10 years later and it seems that it worked!