Too Many Farmers, Not Enough Hunters

In a recent conversation with a brilliant administrator, planner and organizer, I realized that perhaps our region has too many farmers and not enough hunters.

I am borrowing from marketing guru Seth Godin’s analogy of the personality types that exist, thrive and survive in our society. 

Godin says that our society has hunters and farmers. Each has a different approach and style. 

Farmers want to nurture and cultivate. They are planners, bean counters, technocrats and administrators.

Hunters, on the other hand, take risks. They are not satisfied with cultivation. They want to strive, peer over the precipice and invent something to get them to the other side.

Farmers prefer to plan ahead for a bridge or a catwalk. The plans are brilliant. But the bridge may never get built because they keep tweaking the plans, saying it needs additional safety features or a back-up plan in case the bridge fails, and so on and so forth.

Hunters don’t care if it’s a bridge, catwalk or a jet pack engine. They want to get to the other side. That’s their goal.

Now us.

I hear of plans, committees and boards.

We don’t need more plans. We need action.

There are enough plans to choke a horse.

We have plenty of farmers. I believe the overarching influence of government on this region has much to do with the farmer mentality so prevalent in every city.

We have brilliant planners, or farmers.

But where are our hunters? Some are gone. Some, such as Bob Aston, have faded from the scene.

Here’s an example of cooperation between hunters and farmers.

I speak of Bobby Bray, the former executive director of the Virginia Port Authority, and Joe Dorto, the former president and CEO of Virginia International Terminals Inc.

Bobby Bray is a farmer.

Bray cultivated the political machine; he was a farmer.

Bray made sure the port ran smoothly. The last thing he wanted to do was hop on a plane and visit the CEO of Danish-based AP Moeller Maersk, parent company of APM Terminals and Maersk Line. Bray preferred the comforts of his office, fitness room and home to the boardroom or dealing with angry and hardnosed executives.

Contrast him with Dorto, the quintessential hunter. He was impatient, restless and distracted.

He was more comfortable traveling to China to talk to the top executives of China Ocean Shipping Co. or to Switzerland to smooth-talk the owners of Mediterranean Shipping Co.

A week in the office and Dorto was ready to launch.

The two men complmented each other. Their partnership elevated the port from a backwater to a brand name familiar to every major shipping conglomerate in the world.

We need hunters. Now.