GREG MENZIES’ TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
1. Develop a clear vision for your company and a timeline in which to achieve specific goals.
2. Identify your team of key leaders and work on perfecting their leadership skills.
3. Give your leaders ownership of tasks, but know their limits. Don’t give them more than they can handle.
4. allow your passion and enthusiasm for leadership to show. Champion your leaders — be a cheerleader.
5. Give your people the tools they need to succeed. Empower them.
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6. Strike a balance between work, life and family (though it’s easier said than done) and help your team to do the same.
7. Get involved in your community and give back your time and energy by sitting on boards and councils.
Before Greg Menzies arrived, Wigmore was a typical Saskatchewan family farm. Today, four years later, it is four companies under one banner, farming 37,000 acres and operating an eight-site chemical and fertilizer chain plus two Pulse-Processing plants with global sales
Greg Menzies should be a hard man to get hold of. When you check out his timetable — he lives in Vancouver, has just returned from opening a branch office in India, and is now on his way to his Regina business, talking non-stop all the while to markets around the world — it’s impressive that he knows what country he’s in, let alone the day of the week.
For an ultra-busy entrepreneur, though, Menzies still managed to not only return my phone call, but also to set up an interview in record time.
It’s my first lesson in an entrepreneurial leadership style operating at light-speed efficiency.
If innovative business design in the agriculture industry needs a champion, Menzies has earned his way on to anyone’s top 10 list. President and CEO of the Wigmore group of companies, it’s not just his vision for building a vertically integrated agriculture company that warrants attention, he’s also a natural leader looking to mentor and educate up-and-comers.
“Do you mind if we meet up at the airport?” Menzies asks. “I’ll be there anyway so it might be a good place to talk.” When we do meet, I learn just how familiar the inside of an airport must be to him. With the Wigmore companies dealing in international products, and with Menzies being the prototype of a hands-on, entrepreneurial leader, he spends many days abroad seeing for himself what his businesses need to be selling not just now, but in two to three years.
It sets me up for my second lesson. Exponential growth in a tough industry doesn’t happen by chance. Hard work is essential. So are long hours. But what sets Menzies apart is his shining passion for leadership and excellence.
“Leadership isn’t giving orders,” says Menzies. “It’s people following you and taking your vision or idea beyond where you alone could take it.”
Build the road map
Menzies defines his job as head of the group to giving his employees a clear vision to work towards, and then equipping them with the tools and empowering them with the freedom to achieve it.
“My job as the leader is to do the pre-thinking, looking two or three years forward while still being able to manage the everyday demands of seeding crops and managing people and facilities,” Menzies says.
Menzies’ education doesn’t read like your typical CEO’s. His education is in religious studies, and he’s worked for churches and non-profit organizations. But he’s spent the past 20 years at an executive level for several businesses, working in sales and marketing, senior relationship management and international business development.
His leadership style and strength comes from a genuine love and lifelong interest in the skill. Constantly reading and working to improve, Menzies is the first to say he’s not an expert.
His accomplishments may prove otherwise.
“I’m an instinctual leader. I learn by doing,” Menzies says. “I’m very hands on.
“That’s actually been one of the challenging aspects of the business growing so quickly. I’ve had to hand over a lot of responsibility to my key leaders.” Menzies says that an integral part of his success has been bringing talented people on board as he has needed them. He himself
WIGMORE AT A GLANCE
Greg Menzies had an opportunity just under four years ago to get back to his family’s century-old farm, one that his mother’s brothers al and Ernie Wigmore had been farming near regina since the ’70s.
When he did go back, he took the traditional commodity farming model and turned it on its ear. Instead of trying to be all things at once — producer, procurer and marketer — Menzies built new companies to each do these things expertly.
Menzies is firm in saying that farming is not a lifestyle, it’s a business and that’s how he approached his return to the agriculture industry. “I’ve simply applied the business model to agriculture products,” Menzies says. “Crop production is only one aspect of agriculture.”
The Wigmore group is vertically integrated: Wigmore Farms currently manages and farms 37,000 acres with plans to take on more. Wigmore Crop Production Products provides chemical and fertilizer at eight locations across Saskatchewan. Wigmore Processing has two pulse-processing facilities. a fourth company focuses on exports, trade and distribution, including a small packaging line destined for Canada and the world.
Each business is its own profit centre and must be successful in its own right. That said, each business feeds each other — production from Wigmore Farms is sold to Wigmore Processing and the production was made possible through inputs purchased at Wigmore Crop Production Products.
There are several reasons why he’s built this particular business model, Menzies says. “a few years ago the fertilizer markets were all over the place and it bothered me that I didn’t understand that aspect of the industry enough. My solution was to buy a fertilizer and chemical company. We were maybe in over our heads at the time,” he laughs, but next he adds that sometimes that’s just how you learn. They now better understand how farming and input marketing relate to each other, he says.
Wigmore’s is also a model that’s less focused on owning assets and more interested in farm management, processing and exporting. Owning processing facilities and exporting products is essential, he says, because Saskatchewan and Canada produce so much more than we’ll ever consume.
Menzies is keen to take on more partners, farms and farming groups to bring under the Wigmore umbrella. “We’re trying to become a small to mid-size agriculture company,” he says. “We want to be a real player in the Saskatchewan marketplace.”
and while many local farmers look at Wigmore and think, “Wow, that’s a big company,” Menzies puts it all in perspective. “We’re (Wigmore) a tiny blip of production in the world. I could be in India and make one sale that would max out my entire processing production for the year,” Menzies says. “We’re still a tiny company in the world.”
wrote the first invoice for the company, he says, but now has an entire finance team. From an original three people, Wigmore’s payroll today has grown upwards of 80 people, with no signs of slowing down.
Hiring is notoriously important for small companies. A few bad hires can sink any new business, especially when the business is small enough that “fit” is almost as important as skill-set. So, how did Menzies ensure he hired the right people?
“I look for good team players, those who strive for excellence in their everyday lives and, maybe most importantly, people who others are willing to follow,” Menzies says.
It’s far more important to hire the right kind of people than people with certain skills.
“I can train people to do a job,” he says. What he can’t do is create an employee who exemplifies the company’s values, including excellence and integrity.
To get that, he’s on the lookout for the right mix of attitude and aptitude.
(Trying to) strike a balance
To put Menzies’ booming business, endless international flights and constant forward thinking in context, he shows me images on his iPhone of his beautiful wife and three daughters at his oldest daughter’s wedding.
“Some of the biggest challenges I’ve faced have been in striking a balance between work and life,” Menzies says. “I struggle at times to turn off my brain, to pass on ideas and opportunities that I can’t pursue because of lack of time or people power.”
Menzies isn’t always successful at turning off the constant stream of new ideas, thankfully. Looking forward, he’d like to develop a mentorship or apprenticeship program within Wigmore.
Ultimately, part of leading is leading by example, and Menzies wants to show his employees that success and excellence can be achieved while maintaining a healthy family life. If that means late-night flights home after days of travelling across time zones, so be it.
“We’re not perfect,” Menzies says. “The business model isn’t perfect, but we humbly go into this marketplace and are thankful we can participate and grow. We pray for God’s blessing on our crops and success in all our business activities.” CG
WIGMORE AT A GLANCE
Greg Menzies had an opportunity just under four years ago to get back to his family’s century-old farm, one that his mother’s brothers al and Ernie Wigmore had been farming near regina since the ’70s.
When he did go back, he took the traditional commodity farming model and turned it on its ear. Instead of trying to be all things at once — producer, procurer and marketer — Menzies built new companies to each do these things expertly.
Menzies is firm in saying that farming is not a lifestyle, it’s a business and that’s how he approached his return to the agriculture industry. “I’ve simply applied the business model to agriculture products,” Menzies says. “Crop production is only one aspect of agriculture.”
The Wigmore group is vertically integrated: Wigmore Farms currently manages and farms 37,000 acres with plans to take on more. Wigmore Crop Production Products provides chemical and fertilizer at eight locations across Saskatchewan. Wigmore Processing has two pulse-processing facilities. a fourth company focuses on exports, trade and distribution, including a small packaging line destined for Canada and the world.
Each business is its own profit centre and must be successful in its own right. That said, each business feeds each other — production from Wigmore Farms is sold to Wigmore Processing and the production was made possible through inputs purchased at Wigmore Crop Production Products.
There are several reasons why he’s built this particular business model, Menzies says. “a few years ago the fertilizer markets were all over the place and it bothered me that I didn’t understand that aspect of the industry enough. My solution was to buy a fertilizer and chemical company. We were maybe in over our heads at the time,” he laughs, but next he adds that sometimes that’s just how you learn. They now better understand how farming and input marketing relate to each other, he says.
Wigmore’s is also a model that’s less focused on owning assets and more interested in farm management, processing and exporting. Owning processing facilities and exporting products is essential, he says, because Saskatchewan and Canada produce so much more than we’ll ever consume.
Menzies is keen to take on more partners, farms and farming groups to bring under the Wigmore umbrella. “We’re trying to become a small to mid-size agriculture company,” he says. “We want to be a real player in the Saskatchewan marketplace.”
and while many local farmers look at Wigmore and think, “Wow, that’s a big company,” Menzies puts it all in perspective. “We’re (Wigmore) a tiny blip of production in the world. I could be in India and make one sale that would max out my entire processing production for the year,” Menzies says. “We’re still a tiny company in the world.”
wrote the first invoice for the company, he says, but now has an entire finance team. From an original three people, Wigmore’s payroll today has grown upwards of 80 people, with no signs of slowing down.
Hiring is notoriously important for small companies. A few bad hires can sink any new business, especially when the business is small enough that “fit” is almost as important as skill-set. So, how did Menzies ensure he hired the right people?
“I look for good team players, those who strive for excellence in their everyday lives and, maybe most importantly, people who others are willing to follow,” Menzies says.
It’s far more important to hire the right kind of people than people with certain skills.
“I can train people to do a job,” he says. What he can’t do is create an employee who exemplifies the company’s values, including excellence and integrity.
To get that, he’s on the lookout for the right mix of attitude and aptitude.
(Trying to) strike a balance
To put Menzies’ booming business, endless international flights and constant forward thinking in context, he shows me images on his iPhone of his beautiful wife and three daughters at his oldest daughter’s wedding.
“Some of the biggest challenges I’ve faced have been in striking a balance between work and life,” Menzies says. “I struggle at times to turn off my brain, to pass on ideas and opportunities that I can’t pursue because of lack of time or people power.”
Menzies isn’t always successful at turning off the constant stream of new ideas, thankfully. Looking forward, he’d like to develop a mentorship or apprenticeship program within Wigmore.
Ultimately, part of leading is leading by example, and Menzies wants to show his employees that success and excellence can be achieved while maintaining a healthy family life. If that means late-night flights home after days of travelling across time zones, so be it.
“We’re not perfect,” Menzies says. “The business model isn’t perfect, but we humbly go into this marketplace and are thankful we can participate and grow. We pray for God’s blessing on our crops and success in all our business activities.” CG
