I probably should have been an anthropologist and probably would have been if I had not gotten the “heck no, you need a real job” from my parents. I know what some of you are thinking — anthropology? What in the world were you thinking?

I love studying culture and people. An anthropologist does just that; they study human societies and cultures and their development. Totally fascinating. I took some classes in college, but I had to choose a respectable profession, so that’s when I became a poultry scientist! But I have always continued to study culture and people and why they do what they do as a “second career."

My love for culture and people has served me well with all my travels. Interacting with people and finding out their poultry industry pain points is what I love to do, and that is technically my career. Whether I was in academia, government or now industry, pain points always exist.

Most recently, since COVID, I have noticed a shift in pain points. What used to be more technical pain is now more emotional pain. Previously, our industry has had to deal with regulatory, meat quality, and food safety pain points. These are very technical and strategic to solve. However, more recently I feel that there is more of an emotional pain point. People are emotionally tired. People are emotionally drained and people are emotionally stressed out. There has been a shift from technical problems to people problems. Technical problems still exist and strategic solutions are still needed, but now we are adding an emotional component and we are not sure what to do. For this reason, people are leaving our industry.

Is there a solution? Maybe. I think corporate culture is a term that has been slung around a bunch over the last few years, and we fill out forms or check off the boxes on the checklist like an audit. But I will argue that corporate culture is not something that can be checked off. It is a feeling of being welcomed and valued.

We get so caught up in measuring things that we often forget that people just want to be heard and valued. I don’t want to have to measure how many times I say “good morning” over a cup of coffee or call a colleague just to say how’s the family? It is weird to measure that. But I think corporate culture is about doing those things and not having to tell people to do them or measuring the number of times they do them.

Next week, let’s all take the time to call three people a day, just say “howdy” and chat for 5 minutes about the weekend or life’s adventures. I have been doing this for years and it is amazing.

Connection — that’s how culture is created. I hope in my next life (after retirement) I will have the opportunity to be more anthropologist-like and dig deep into developing corporate culture. People are amazing, but you have to reach out and find out why.

Anthropology as my second career

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