Greg Duerksen

Harvard Business School

MBA

1983

Graduated with honors. Stayed on an additional year as an Associates Fellow writing course materials for Harvard Business School's globally-acclaimed Agribusiness Program.

Augustana College

BA

1979

Mr. Duerksen attended Augustana on a tuba and voice scholarship and added a business degree when he realized he was going to starve on the basis of his musical talents. The joke at the music school was, "If you can't make it in music, you can always go to Harvard Business School."

Soyatech Global Soy & Grain Trade Summit

Soyatech Global Soy & Grain Trade Summit  Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

2011-10-31

Global AgInvesting Conference

Global AgInvesting Conference  New York, New York

2011-10-31

Animal Health Institute

Animal Health Institute  Boca Raton, Florida

2011-10-31

Finding the Right Answer is the Easy Part

In turnarounds, you have a few short weeks to solve the business problem. That's the easy part. Implementing the solution through hundreds and thousands of other people is the hard part. It requires extraordinary clarity of strategy and tactics and the communication of both, and then months of follow-up. This discussion outlines a powerful framework for thinking about and communicating turnaround strategies and tactics.

What Farmers Can Teach Harvard Business School...and vice versa

Growing up on a farm prepared me extremely well for Harvard Business School. I see four fundamental lessons that farmers can teach HBS:
• Long-term perspective
• Personal responsibility and honor
• Deal with uncertainty
• Wise financial management

There are also a few things farmers can learn from Harvard Business School:
• Work through others
• Robust risk management
• Operations management thought process
• Think big and think globally

The War for Talent

There is a growing global shortage of talent to fill key roles in scientific, operations, marketing, general management and others functions at all organizational levels. Economic pressures have led to the elimination of bench strength and many developmental posts. The boom in dual-career professional couples and increasing deference to their children is restricting relocation mobility for many executives. The developed world is faced with an aging population in general plus an ever-dwindling proportion of the younger generation pursuing engineering and related technical education and careers. Emerging economies have the young people, but the education systems do not have the capacity to keep up with the demand. Consequently, with demand rising relative to supply, the price of talent has risen.

The solution is simple, but not at all easy to implement:
? Companies need a comprehensive talent acquisition and retention strategy beginning with university-level courting of promising students.
? Talent must be nurtured and challenged through developmental grounding in roles of progressive responsibility
? Aggressive and flexible measures must be employed to incent and retain those key to the company's present and future.
? Lastly, companies will need to continually look to the outside to fill roles not only for which internal candidates are not available, but more importantly to bring in fresh ideas, perspective, and eyes to the organization to help renew it.