John Calipari and Alan Mulally are two key leaders in today’s world who focus on team-centered leadership.

At ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, Calipari, head men’s basketball coach at the University of Kentucky (UK), and Mulally, former CEO of Ford and the recipient of the Alltech 2016 Medal of Excellence, both spoke on the idea of building a team and working together to achieve goals within a team. Although their experiences come from different sectors, they share many of the same ideas. Calipari gave five main points that he thought best suit his style of being a leader and building a team, while Mulally explained what he did to bring Ford out of a $12.7 billion loss.
 

Calipari: Connection, communication and creating community leaders
 

Calipari talked a lot about his “one and done” athletes, who come to UK for one year to play basketball and then leave straight for the NBA.  He explained that it all starts out with “staying in the moment.”
 

“You can’t get it done in one day,” said Calipari.
 

He challenges all his teams at UK to abide by this rule. He also encourages his teams to stay steady and keep everything in perspective.
 

“You have to try stuff and fail fast,” said Calipari.
 

He emphasized building relationships based on trust that will last forever. Social media is “vital in today’s world,” he said, and you have to “connect with a lot of people, reform, act quickly.”
 

But he noted that social media can’t take the place of face-to-face contact and creating an attitude through caring. It shows his players that he is serious about his job and he wants what is best for them.
 

These are all the steps Calipari said make someone a “servant leader,” and this is important because Calipari feels it is his job to build community philanthropists in his team members. All of his former players who are now in the NBA are involved in their community in some fashion, and Calipari feels that this in particular is a personal affirmation that he has done his job well.
 

Mulally: Making working together work
 

Mulally, like Calipari recruiting for his team, recruited the best people to work at Ford. He made sure that he surrounded himself with 16 leaders, nearly all of whom were already Ford employees. He hired the best 16 for the job and made sure that they all supported each other and their teams in the workplace.
 

Coming in at a time when Ford faced a $12.6 billion loss was a challenge, but Mulally felt company unity could bring them through it.
 

“The team decided that they were going to work together and share the issue, and people were going to survive,” said Mulally.
 

That’s what was needed to overcome such a big deficit. With everyone buying in and trusting not only Mulally but their entire Ford team, it made everything run more smoothly and lifted them out of that loss.
 

“Everybody has to know what the plan is; everybody has to know what the status is,” said Mulally.
 

He shared four key points for leading a team:
 

1. Go after a compelling vision
2. Include everyone       
3. Work on strategy
4. Check it out – review the plan and make sure it’s working (i.e., goals are being achieved)
    

 “Working together always works,” he said.
 

John Calipari and Alan Mulally were presenters at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks from ONE will be made available on the Alltech Idea Lab by mid-June 2016. For access, click on the button below.

When Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech, took to the stage at the company’s annual symposium, ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, his one question to the 3,000 gathered delegates was: “What is your ONE big idea?”

“Turn on your lamp,” he said, to light the paths ahead on your journey of discovery. He reflected that his own personal journey began on Gold Rush Road, Lexington, Kentucky, USA, and that journey has taken him to meet some of the world’s most amazing people, such as Muhammad Ali and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
 

His inspirational, entrepreneurial journey started with $10,000 and a question from his mother: “What took you so long?”
 

Dr. Lyons recognized that there were many other “lamps” that lit the path on his journey to creating a now $2 billion company. Bringing his team along on this journey was important, he noted, and at ONE, Dr. Lyons shared the following insights:
 

1. Find what you love, what makes your heart sing
2. Welcome opportunity
3. Make your one choice

Dr. Lyons stressed that choices change lives, not chances. Take the decision to go down that corridor. If you don’t go down that corridor, how can you expect doors to open to you?
 

“I’d like to help you to open those doors,” said Dr. Lyons at the ONE opening plenary session. “If we share our ideas with others, we can all conspire to help to make those ideas come to pass.”
 

Opportunities are everywhere, yet those opportunities are fleeting; in fact, Dr. Lyons believes you have to grab those opportunities within a 24-hour period.
 

He posed the question: “Where do ideas come from?” In looking for those new ideas, always look for the catch — what’s the catch? Then, find the solution.

Where to look for ideas:

1. Travel
2. Create
3. Build an innovation incubator
4. Be ready
5. Search for the catch and overcome it
6. Turn setbacks into bounce-backs

Entrepreneurs are sales people; they always find the solution. Steve Jobs and Henry Ford were sellers, Dr. Lyons said. They sold dreams, dreams of communications and of transportation. He advises entrepreneurs to march right when the rest of the world marches left. In going that different route, you go down the road less traveled.

Remember: If you do things the way you’ve always done them, nothing will ever change, and Einstein defined this as insanity! 

Dr. Pearse Lyons was a presenter at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks from ONE will be made available on the Alltech Idea Lab by mid-June 2016. For access, click on the button below.

Nowadays, fewer people are living in rural areas and even fewer are becoming farmers. While agriculture is being forced to compete with sprawling urban settlements for land and water, it will also be required to serve on other major fronts: adapting to and contributing to the mitigation of climate change, helping preserve natural habitats and maintaining a high level of biodiversity while continuing to feed the world.

New and traditional demands continue to grow for agricultural products, thus putting pressure on an already scarce resource. As our global population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, the question must be asked: How can we feed the world with a finite amount of land?

In order to visualize the world in 2050, Alltech created a virtual experience entitled ONE Vision. ONE Vision will allow attendees to experience a planet of plenty, where technology and science align in order to produce nutritious food. Attendees will be guided through a 10,000-square-foot virtual planet, where they can witness a world in harmony with its three essential elements: land, air and water. Attendees will also find themselves in sub-Saharan Africa, where advanced soil management solutions have tripled crop production, and in Asia’s paddy fields, where upland planting is producing sustainable harvests in flood-prone areas. Across the globe, the farms of the future are thriving as their animals achieve their genetic potential, producing more with less, all while reversing soil degradation and reducing water use, waste and emissions. Attendees can also interact with reaction tables, allowing them to understand the effects of today’s choices on the agriculture industry and future of our planet. 

By drawing back the curtain on the future and allowing attendees to glimpse what’s possible, Alltech hopes to encourage individuals to make the right choices today for their future tomorrow and thereafter. A future of plenty in agriculture is ours if we harness the power of technology, conserve resources and encourage innovation. 

Jerry O’Callaghan brings his extraordinary story to The Alltech REBELation. As a young man he moved from his Irish homeland to Brazil, where, through hard work, persistence and refusing to give up, he became a driving force in the global beef industry.

His amazing journey began nearly 20 years ago, when he took a leap of faith and joined what was then a small company, JBS, with the mission of developing its international business. And develop it, he did. Today JBS is the world’s leading animal protein producer, with O’Callaghan remaining a central force in its ever-expanding global rise. Under his leadership, JBS became the first beef company to launch an IPO. Its success has reached into other markets, including pork, chicken, dairy, lamb, leather and biodiesel.

Great achievements, however, do not come without risks, trial and error. O’Callaghan has seen every success and failure that can come with animal production, particularly within today’s challenge of feeding a growing global population. All the while, JBS’s efforts have been tailored to minimize environmental impact and to improve the communities in which it operates.

No one is better equipped than O’Callaghan to speak on the advantages of partnering with a large-scale, multi-protein company such as JBS. Join us to learn about the opportunities awaiting a progressive farmer or rancher who forms an alliance with a dynamic and globally commercial company, and learn what JBS is doing differently that sets it so far ahead of competitors in the beef industry.

O’Callaghan’s talk will provide an entrée to this Beef Symposium rich in networking and opportunity. His take on “The JBS Story: How to become the biggest and the best” will share the strategies that have molded JBS and put it in the leading position it holds today. He will impart tips on finding the right customer for every product and establishing efficient, low-cost operations. You will bring home the tools you need to find your own niche market and identify your competitive advantage in this highly competitive arena.

We invite you to join The Alltech REBELation!

For more information and to register, go to rebel.alltech.com.

I feel that this is the best answer for what I feel is quite a difficult question. I couldn't pick just one person ... This is because farming in its entirety is about working together, it has and should always be a community. Therefore my favourite farmers are those from yesterday and those like myself that will be farming tomorrow. I am proud to be a part of what is essentially a team, a global community that have chosen to farm to feed the world.

Destiny is competing in Alltech’s Favorite Farmer Contest. The photo with the most likes on our Facebook page will win a trip to the Alltech REBELation in Lexington, KY. It’s an opportunity to meet farmers and other agriculture people from all over the world.

Vote for Destiny by liking the photo here.

A digital and global age filled with increasingly busy individuals beckons change and adaptation. Few have weathered the storms quite like LEGO. They have answered the challenges of innovation and have simultaneously held to the simple toy that has always made them LEGO. Over the past decade, LEGO has soared within the toy industry, rising to become 2015’s most powerful brand in the world, according to global consultancy firm Brand Finance. One has to wonder how a company born out of children’s play habits from sixty years ago still thrives in this new age. Can a brand be reinvented?

Marketing expert, Dr. Damien McLoughlin, will address this very question as he presents his talk, Rebel and Rebuild, during Alltech REBELation. So in anticipation of the full story to come during REBELation, here are 5 Lessons from LEGO’s Story.

• The key to staying relevant, as is expected in business, is the customer. Any business can identify their target market. The value is in truly knowing the customer: their tastes, their time, their media influences. LEGO knows as much or more about children’s play than any company in the world.

• Both knowing your customer and identifying the most relevant version of your business are products of research.  In the 10 years that LEGO has grown into a toy manufacturing superpower, they have paralleled that growth with research expenditures.

• Mistakes are the evidence of experimentation and a direct line to innovation. No industry can survive without an investment in uncovering new knowledge. With that experimentation comes some failure, but those mistakes come together to unveil brilliance. Ninety percent of LEGO staff’s brilliant ideas never make it to market.

• There is something to be said for protecting your company’s creativity and the invaluable minds that produce the ideas often seen as far and away. Don’t allow statements like “that will never work” to kill the brilliance in futuristic thinking. LEGO keeps the workspace of their innovative team, known as the Future Lab, separate from the rest of the company.

• In attempts to be new and inventive do not stray too far the core experience that is the foundation for your business. The race toward the future while maintaining company identity was captured by LEGO Group CEO, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp as “about discovering what’s obviously Lego, but has never been seen before.”