Farm Succession: A Communication-First Approach

Being able to communicate during succession is the ultimate management and leadership challenge facing farms. The purpose of this paper is to better understand the importance of communication to succession, and highlight the need for industry-specific research, extension work and policies to improve this knowledge. Most succession problems are caused by poor communication and yet information on how to do this well is mostly held by individual consultants and advisors, is randomly applied and has not been well researched. What are best management practices for communicating during succession? This paper builds a clear vision of the importance of helping farm families communicate with each other business during times of intergenerational change. By reviewing extension, research, surveys and general articles, the author demonstrates gaps and much needed support. Also, provided is an introduction the concept of “slow succession” to be able to understand why transition plans take longer than expected and how farmers can leverage this incremental period of transitioning from labor to management to ownership. Purposefully slowing down to train the next generation, gives time to build confidence, trust and acceptance, and also establish better ways of communicating and co-created timelines and business plans.