1. Annie’s Project – Education for Farm Women
Annie’s Project – Education for Farm Women a 501(c)(3) organization.

2. Succession Planning Part One
Communication Barriers

3. What are Your Barriers?
Let’s face it our own mortality is not easy to talk about to begin with and then as children it is difficult to think about and discuss your parents’ mortality. The next generation doesn’t want to appear greedy or unappreciative…that makes this conversation difficult to initiate. Some will not talk about what was going to happen when they pass away. They do not want to discuss something so morbid or something that might take away from their control of the situation. As an in-law, you can observe some things but the older generation controls the flow of information and most conversations that took place in their household. Farm families also have the confusion of work, family and personal all mixing together in the family business.

4. Common Communication Barriers
Lack of role separation
Not an easy topic to discuss
Noise and Stress
Off-farm heirs and on-farm heirs
Generational differences
Personality differences
Gender differences

5. Case of Role Separation
Dad has breakfast with the family (family)
Dad drives to work (business)
Dad plays a game of softball after work (personal)
Business and Personal Separation:
Dad has breakfast with the family (family)
Drives ten miles to work (business)
Stops to play a softball game on the way home from work (personal)
Farm Business and Personal Life overlap:
Dad starts day with one hour of work in the shop with son (business and family)
Has breakfast with wife, son and daughter (family)
Has 2 phone calls in kitchen during breakfast (business)
Meets with neighbor/landlord/hunting friend after breakfast (business and personal)
Has noon meal with his 70 year-old parents/landlords (family and business)
Teaches daughter how to operate new combine (business and family)
Attends 4-H meeting with son in evening as advisor of small engine projects (family, personal and business)

6. Lack of Role Separation
Dad has breakfast with family, takes 2 phone calls (family and business)
Meets with neighbor/landlord/hunting friend after breakfast (business and personal)
Has noon meal with his 70-year-old parents/landlords (family and business)
Teaches daughter how to operate new combine (family and business)
Attends 4-H meeting with son in evening as advisor of small engine projects (family, personal and business)

7. Not Easy Topics to Discuss
Money
Management
Family differences
Job competency
Disappointments
New ideas
Hopes for the future
Risk

8. Noise Message Effect Message Feedback
Encodes
Decodes
Communication
Channel
Message
SENDER
RECEIVER
Effect
Message
Decodes
Encodes
Feedback

9. Off-Farm and On-Farm Heirs
Off-farm heirs may only get bits and pieces of what is happening within the farm business and begin to draw their own realities.
They often have a very different perception of what it takes to run a farm based on their childhood memories of working along side Mom and Dad.

10. Off-Farm and On-Farm Heirs
On-farm heirs may over value their time and inputs to the farm and expect more than what others think they should have.
Big issues: knowledge and perception of fair versus equal.

11. Generational Definitions
Age
Birth Years
Titles
70 +
1922 to 1945
Veterans
(silent, traditionalists, hard workers, formal communication style, deliberate, no news is good news)
1946 to 1964
Baby Boomers
(workaholics, face-to-face communication, diplomatic, need to feel valued)
36 – 50
1965 to 1980
Generation Xers
(entrepreneurs, work life balance, direct and immediate communication – blunt)
1981 to 1995
Generation Y – Nexters - Millennials
(millennials, entrepreneurs, multitasking, work life balance, communicate through technology)
1 - 22
1995 to present
Generation Z – iGen
(This group is still too young to clearly differentiate from Generation Y but it appears they will be greatly influenced by technology.)
These are our generational breakdowns. Do you see where each member of your family farm fit as far as generations?
Each of these generations have had world events, influential people, technological advances and many others things that have shaped who they are and their value systems. This has lead to each generation having distinct attitudes, behaviors expectations, habits and motivational buttons. These factors can all affect how we communicate with one another.
Let’s take a look at generational characteristics.
Veterans are hard workers, view work as an obligation and tend to be more interested in working as an individual. They are more formal in their communications and more likely to write a note than make a call. Feedback is not necessary as ‘no news is good news.” They are motivated by respect and a feeling of job satisfaction.
Boomers on the other hand view work as an exciting adventure and many times are workaholics. They would rather work as part of a team and are more likely to have meetings with work teams. They prefer to communicate face-to-face and don’t really appreciate feedback on how they are doing. “I don’t need to be told how I’m doing, just give me a raise or promotion.” Motivation comes in the form of being valued and needed by others.
Generation X is self-reliant and looks for structure and direction in the workplace. They tend to be entrepreneurs and view work as a difficult challenge. They embrace direct and immediate communication and value feedback. Freedom to try new things and do it their way is considered both a reward and motivator. This generation is the first to find importance in balancing work and family.
Nexters value entrepreneurial opportunities, multitasking and looking for the next thing to do. They are very goal oriented and view work as a means to an end. It’s important for this generation to participate in decisions and feel like they are a part of the farm. They communicate through technology; i.e. cell phones, texting, instant messages, social media, etc. They are used to instant feedback and are rewarded and motivated by working with creative individuals and what they consider to be meaningful work. Nexters have carried on the importance of work and family balance.
As you can see what we see, what we experience affects who we are and how we deal with others. Another part of what makes us who we are, are the innate tendencies that we are born with. A combination of innate characteristics and learned characteristics are what form our personality temperament.

12. Personality and Gender Differences
Communication style
Listening style
How individuals deal with communication barriers
Working as a part of a team
What is important to an individual
Our personality affects many areas of our lives.
Learning about personality
There are many tools to help you learn more about personality characteristics and how this affects the way we take in information, process it and then send it back out. Basically how we communicate with one another.
Observation is another handy tool you can use…but you must take the time to really pay attention to how people react to what you said or what someone else said. Think about why they reacted the way they did…should the sender of the message have communicated it in a different way? Used different words, more or less explanation, or maybe the sender should have used a different means to send the message. Maybe yelling across the lot wasn’t the best way to give an employee directions or maybe a blanket to all your children with your estate plan isn’t the best way to deliver what could be a sensitive issue.
By taking some time to learn about the tendencies of different personality and their communication styles, you will learn more about yourself. You may find that something you do is very annoying to others in your family and you didn’t even know you were doing it. For example: I’m a Gold personality and I really have to have things organized or I feel like things are out of control. I constantly am working to keep my kitchen counter clear of clutter, mail, school bags, etc. My husband sorts through the mail, pulls out want he finds interesting and leaves it all lay in a mess. This just drives me nuts and he doesn’t even notice it. Just a personality difference, but could lead to a bigger issue if it’s not recognized.
In the long communication will continue to improve if we understand each person’s personalities, what they value and how they communicate. Back to my example of my husband and me…I’ve learned that his communication is less is better. He is a green personality and they rely on logic and short statements of fact to communicate. They don’t especially like to just chat about the day’s events and can just spend time without talking. I on the other hand tend to have my blue side come out when it comes to communication…I love to talk about the day’s events and when I tell a story…no detail is left unsaid. As a result my stories tend to be long and winding and my husband either zones out in the middle (waiting for the important part at the end) or he interrupts with his comments b/c he thinks I’m finished. Having been through the colors training, I have learned to stick closer to the important facts in the conversation and Sam has agreed to become more of an active listener. Actually answering my questions and asking questions as a result of the conversation.
Is it perfect? No, but recognizing your strengths and weaknesses can really improve the communication process.

13. Say NO to Secrecy! Perry Pam Patrick Penny Perry, Jr.
One of the biggest problems we see is that generations have trouble communicating with one another. The senior generation often quips….some day this will all be yours……..and the younger generation will quip under their breadth, and then I can make the changes we need!
Patrick and Penny had built a successful farming operation. Their child Perry was interested in inheriting and operating the farm. His sister Pam was a school teacher and was never involved in the farm. The parents were concerned that the two children would have great difficulty getting along with each other if the farm was left to the two of them outright. Perry and Rose decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to pass the ownership of the farm to their grandchildren by placing the farm in a trust. The farm was to be managed by Perry according to a detailed management plan in the trust document. They never involved Pam and Perry in the planning process. In fact, they intended to keep their succession plan a secret until Perry’s death. But, as so often happens in families that are close personally, the secret slipped out. Perry was absolutely furious and felt betrayed by his parents. Surely they did not trust him to bypass him with the farmland in this manner after he had spent so many years working the farm alongside Dad. He felt he deserved his shot at owning the farm.
The parents had a good plan, but to spring it on the children after you are dead is never a good idea. All parties would have been so much better off if the children had some input in planning process, had time to digest the advantages of the plan, and had time to possibly even buy into the plan in terms of wholeheartedly endorsing it.

14. How can we improve family business communication?
So how do we move from this to this?
We will start with some information about communication, how we communicate and actions or inactions that lead us to communication problems.