You can't stretch to the moon on every topic. So, there's an element of focus first. Any business needs to ultimately be able to go fast. Where are we heading in the big picture? People are running in all different directions fast, and the company doesn't move fast. As you get more responsibility, maybe take over a team, or you get a larger organization, hopefully you learn and you start practicing more and more of it. You're actually going to get better results, faster results, more excited team if you can bring them along through questions, and not being the problem solver yourself on everything. And so, try and organize yourselves where you're really focusing your personal time to be there fully, be fully present for the critical moments.
Welcome to the Cultivating Leaders Podcast. I'm your host and curiosity captain, Nicole Erzig. If you are ready to lead better, think bigger, and grow faster, you're in the right place. We bring you real conversations with top leaders across food and agriculture, focused on the practical skills and mindsets you need to lead in today's environment. Today's guest is a leader known for setting bold visions and building teams that actually deliver on them. Eric Hansotia, chairman, president, and CEO of AGCO Corporation, leads a global organization focused on advancing the future of agriculture through innovation, technology, and a farmer-first mindset. Throughout his career, Eric has been recognized for setting ambitious goals, driving operational excellence, and leading teams through complex transformation. If you're leading people, setting direction, or trying to turn strategy into action, this conversation will challenge how you think about goals and execution. Welcome to the pod, Eric.
Well, it's so great to be here with you, Nicole. I just love talking about agriculture and leadership and what we can all do to make it better.
Oh my gosh, well, you're in the right spot then. This is the podcast to be on. So glad you're here. Okay, so I always ask guests, what did I miss from your bio? Like if I was someone who was, you know, just tuning in, maybe I just talked to you on LinkedIn. What do I not know yet about Eric?
Well, I mean, for this audience, it's maybe relevant to say I grew up working on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin, was in 4-H and FFA and kind of jumped into every kind of little competition I could with showing cattle and raising chickens and sheep and doing all kinds of projects. And it was a great way to learn a lot about agriculture, but it's a great way to learn a lot about leadership. And so, I think that's probably a common background to many of your listeners. And then spent the rest of my time in the ag equipment business. And more and more it's morphing from ag equipment to ag technology. And so, that's what I love. I love understanding farmers' problems and finding intersecting innovation to help them, whether it's on the product or with data or with changing how we do business. So, that's kind of what makes me tick.
Appreciate the background. It's awesome. So, growing up on the dairy farm, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you think it was going to be CEO of AGCO?
No, not at all. Not even close to that. In fact, for many years I thought I was going to pursue being a farmer. I was taking classes in high school and they ended up being fairly heavy in math and sciences. And my guidance counselor suggested, "Well, why don't you get a degree in engineering?" I was planning to go to college anyway and I thought, "Yeah, I'll do that." And that really lit my fuse. I fell in love with engineering. The problem-solving nature of the tools and the innovation it brought. So, I pursued an engineering direction. I was engineering in the beginning of my career and then grew into business leadership. But you still use a lot of those same tools. You use a lot about understanding how a farm operates and what's important to a farmer, and you use a lot about the engineering principles of solving problems and how things work. But, didn't have any aspiration of being CEO. It was just kind of like, I want to do a really good job at what I'm doing and try and create a little bit of excellence here, and then that led to one thing after another. I threw myself into new opportunities, kind of restarted again, did one thing for a little while and then would try something very different within the same company. Built a broad base and one thing led to another, and ultimately I had the opportunity to have this wonderful job, which is to me my favorite job in the world. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
That's great to hear because I think sometimes people can look at roles like this and think that's so high pressure or you've always had to have your eye on that for a really long time. So, give us a little bit of background, Eric, of okay, so you went into this with trying to help farmers solving problems using your engineering degree. What did that journey look like from, okay, now I want to grow both as a person, up kind of the corporate ladder, but like I can tell you're still in it for the farmer at the end of the day.
Yeah, absolutely. So, one of the things I tell maybe people earlier in their career is there's a false advice that sometimes schools give younger employees or students, and that is to kind of map out their career path. And I tell them, absolutely don't do that. Do the opposite. Instead of trying to look forward, I want this job and then that job and then that job. Look at the job you're in and say, how can I generate excellence in this? If I'm in finance, how do I close the books three days faster? If I'm in quality, how do I cut my quality issues in half? If I'm in engineering, how do I design something that's not been designed before? Create excellence in whatever you're doing. And then throw yourself into something new. Move from one kind of activity to another. Build a set of experiences and better a set of skills. And then create excellence in that second one. And if you do that time after time, then pretty much you get a reputation and people say, "Well, we want that person to take on more and more responsibility," and opportunities will open up. It's a much better way to grow yourself and to build a team around you than to try and map your career. In fact, there's a quote that is on a plaque that I still have in my office which I got from my roommate, my best friend when I was going to college. And it says, "Excellence is a result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible." And I've tried to live that way and I've tried to lead that way. It's been something that's resonated for me and hopefully it'll spark something for others as well.
Yeah, I love that. You actually stole my next question because I was going to ask, how do you define excellence? But I love that you've got a plaque that you can see every day right there in your office.
Have you always been an ambitious person? I'm curious about that.
I would say yes. I mean, when I look back to my days in 4-H or my days in FFA or sports or other things, I always looked to do a couple things. And I didn't think about it at that time, but when I look back on it, there's an element of leadership when there's a group standing around trying to figure out what to do, I tried to rally the crew and gather up the ideas and establish a path forward. And so, I think there was an element of leadership that was a bit natural there, but it was groomed over time through those organizations. I think they do a great job of putting you in situations, public speaking, all kinds of different skill-building activities to build your confidence and build your skill sets. So, yeah, I think I've always had ambition, but I'm happy. As I look back, I tried to channel that ambition into what was right in front of me and not kind of look out too far down the road.
So, would you say, is setting ambitious goals, is that what helps you as you think about your personal career trajectory and also the teams that you lead? Is setting ambitious goals a key to success, or how do you know when to stretch yourself enough where maybe I'm getting too far ahead and pie in the sky versus pushing myself hard enough that feels maybe just right enough out of reach?
