Brutal truths about farm communication

In working with seven cohorts of the National Farm Leadership Program, I have come to understand the critical role that communication plays in the success of families and businesses, and how challenging teaching effective communication can be. This article is a summary of these experiences.

Brutal Truth #1:

Teaching communication alone rarely makes people better communicators.

If it were merely a skills challenge, well-delivered workshops would generate better long-term communication improvements than they do. People may show temporary improvement after a workshop, but soon revert to their old ways.

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When put to the test, most people cannot clearly state what they want, and the frustration of trying has many people believing they can’t change. It’s not uncommon to hear, “That’s just who I am”. Our core tendencies are part of who we are, but personality is plural. We are way more than our default “reactive tendencies” and thanks to neuroplasticity, we are capable of self innovating so we can show up the way we know we can, when and with whom we most need to, and talk about the issues that matter most.

We still teach communications through the National Farm Leadership Program, but only when people are ready. People are ready when they can clearly articulate what they want and can focus on outcomes instead of problems. This can be surprisingly difficult. Psychologically, our default focus is set to identifying what we don’t want, what we don’t have and what we don’t like. Yup, backwards. This negative approach is our nervous system’s default setting, but we’re capable of switching to an outcome orientation.

Brutal Truth #2:

The capacity to work through my thoughts and make up my mind is ground zero for high impact leadership and engagement.

Most people find communication challenging because they’re conflicted. A part of them wants to act, another says, “Don’t”. Inner conflict makes clear communication difficult, and when speaking about high stakes and complex matters, just about impossible. Nearly 100 per cent of all participants and coaching clients work with me in part because the chronic inner drama created because of not “knowing their mind” makes it impossible to declare what they want and act.

Here are few inner conflicts common among farmers:

“One part of me wants to tell my parents that their unwillingness to discuss and formalize their transition out of this business is making it impossible to plan for the future, but another part of me is afraid to say anything because I’m afraid it will cause a blow out.”
“One part of me wants to get into a new business, but I’m afraid what my neighbors and family will say.”
“I’m angry at my employee, but I’m not going to say anything because I’m worried he might quit.”

Knowing how to effectively work through inner conflict is a hallmark of high performance and is a focus within the National Farm Leadership Program.

Brutal Truth #3:

Life is much more complex than it was when we were young. People need to reorganize how they think.

Success in agriculture runs on high functioning interdependent relationships whose currency is communication. This wasn’t the case in our early lives, so we didn’t need to organize ourselves to thrive in complexity. But we need to.

These interdependent relationships include the growing group of advisors that modern farms use. The conversations are more complicated than ever and require a level of vulnerability and transparency from the farmer that is unprecedented in my opinion. The number one complaint I hear from advisors is that farmers won’t buy advice that will add value to their farms. Putting that value proposition aside, many farmers are just not able to engage with advisors effectively. The fact is most people (two thirds to three quarters of the general population) struggle to think independently and act strategically. Charting their own path, independent of what their peers are doing, requires them to self-innovate – to think and behave to their potential. Most people just aren’t there – yet. The “yet” is an open possibility if they’re willing to go down a path of personal and professional development.

People often say they want more confidence, or to communicate effectively, or to stop employee turnover. All those things at their source are usually about how the farmer “shows up” with family, employees, advisors, and vendors. What they really want is a life and business where people tell the truth about what’s really going and where people want to hear that truth – no drama, just clarity, learning and partnership. All of this is possible, and it starts with them.

Brutal Truth #4:

When it comes to personal innovation, the juice is worth the squeeze.

Meta analysis of a large data set has shown that communication (relating skills) is a differentiating set of skills between high performing people and low performing people. Strengths such as intelligence, creativity, technical knowledge, and passion show up for both high and low performing people. In other words, by the numbers, just having these strengths doesn’t explain why some people are significantly more effective than others. Know what does? The capacity to relate to others and communicate clear outcomes and vision. Poor leaders don’t do this. High impact leaders do, and with whopping margins. Communication has a multiplying effect because of how it impacts the behavior of others. That’s leadership.

Does it really matter? One legendary study showed that the top 10 per cent of leaders who could communicate clear outcomes and vision produced nearly twice the profits of the middle 80 per cent combined. Oh, and they were running identical business units.

As a start, rate yourself between 1 and 5 on the following statements. This will give you a chance to reflect on how you relate to others:

I prioritize connecting with others in a caring way.
I prioritize mentoring and developing others.
I am collaborative.
I promote teamplay.
I confront others to resolve challenges.
I share my vision and clarify desired outcomes.

I tell everyone who pleads that they’re “just not a people person” that they don’t need to be amazing, they just need to be effective. New methods we’re using in the National Farm Leadership Program are leveraging people’s capacity to adapt and is empowering people to show up authentically in ways they didn’t think they could. It makes all the difference.