Inevitably, when farms expand to include multiple family members, family dynamics change. Before we talk about the stresses and strains that this can produce, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fundamental positives that this change brings to the farm.
“If there is stress and conflict in your family, it will almost inevitably trace its roots back to a lack of effective communication at some point in the family system,” says Richard Cressman.
Cressman, a six-foot tall former dairy farmer from New Hamburg, Ont. isn’t the sort of person you’d expect to be talking about feelings and emotions. Yet in his no-nonsense way, he does just that, helping farm families sort out things like blame, hurt, guilt, stress and fear when those emotions have festered into conflicts.
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Ground rules for farm family communications
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Cressman is motivated to help farm families through conflicts because he lived it. In 1990 he and his brother terminated their 14-year farming partnership and it wasn’t due to financial problems. “I’ve experienced first hand the spats, the squabbles, the yelling, the anger, the resentment, and the hurt feelings that frequently break up successful farming businesses,” he says.
Over the next decade, Cressman learned how to manage emotions in a family business and did his MBA thesis on farm succession. His relationship with his brother healed and now they run a seed dealership together, along with his nephews. Over the last 11 years, he’s coached countless farm families to deal with the emotional part of the business.
Cressman often finds the traditional two-way communication structure of Mom and Dad talking between themselves is simply overwhelmed when more people are added to the mix. If that communication infrastructure no longer works, it’s time to have group meetings, he says. It’s just like buying more equipment or trading up to increase capacity after acquiring more land. You have to increase your capacity to communicate.
“The more people you have involved in the business, the more frequently meetings need to be held,” says Cressman.
The reality is that you’re not going to agree all the time and it’s important that you don’t all think alike.
By meeting regularly everybody knows what’s going on in other parts of the farm. Plus, the meetings give us experience in coming to agreement on smaller, easier everyday decisions before the big ones come up.
“Cultivate an attitude that your meetings are an integral part of the future success of the business,” Cressman advises.
In his consulting, Cressman has seen all sorts of meetings work, as long as everyone agrees on the ground rules. Basically, guidelines should include frequency of meetings, who attends and who has input into decision making. Sometimes agendas are used but for families who meet at least once a week, formal written ones are usually not needed.
Clear guidelines for behaviour in meetings are key. If someone leaves a meeting angry, they’re still expected to come to the next meeting and be willing to participate. Also, don’t solicit support from one family member behind the back of another. And always respect confidentiality.
Although the communication structure should be somewhat adaptable and flexible, never stop meeting for the sake of being too busy. Attendance is mandatory. On some farms nothing major gets done or bought unless it has been brought up in a meeting so everyone knows what’s going on.
“There’s no right or wrong way to do this,” says Cressman. “It doesn’t matter where, just do it, meet regularly.”
In one family he worked with, the siblings could easily talk to each other but the younger brother struggled to talk with his Dad and so preferred to text. Eventually, they got used to each other and dropped the text messaging for face-to-face communications.
Another pair of brothers discuss the day’s events in the parlour, while milking in the mornings and have a big family meeting once a year, including spouses. On Monday mornings at another farm, Dad buys take-out breakfast in town and then the three farming children meet and eat at his house.
To make the best management decisions for the farm as a business, keep the family dynamics out of the discussion process, says Ron Hanson. After the meeting has concluded, then go back to being a family and interacting together as a family. “Keep the family out of the farm business and keep the business out of the family.”
3. Step outside
Willingness to look at the situation in a new perspective can really stop things from escalating. “Knowing the situation is bigger than just you, and asking how you fit into this, can really be helpful,” says Cressman.
That’s sometimes difficult to do, especially with farms spreading out further and familial relationships sometimes crossing some very blurry lines. Expanding personal knowledge, networks and experiences can teach how to deal with more situations and personalities, or at least keep the situation in perspective.
Letting comments or little disagreements roll off our backs can go a long way in keeping a positive attitude in a family and in a business. However, some people, particularly siblings, know which buttons to push and love to push them.
In turns out, however, that we can still choose how we react.
When a conflict arises, we immediately tell ourselves an ugly story, according to the theory of famous psychologist Albert Ellis. Every time we have something go wrong, this story is immediately created in our heads with us as the hero and someone else as the villain, all based on negative emotions.
“If we know it’s happening, we can at least react differently, be less judgmental and change our attitude to be more positive,” says Gregorio Billikopf, a professor at the University of California.
Billikopf, who specializes in farm labour relations, has written a book called Third Party Mediation, (download it free at www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7conflict/). In it, he states if both parties clearly say what they need from the outcome rather than making it a competition, they’re more likely to get to a win-win situation. It’s not about giving up or solving disagreements with a lame compromise. By focusing on needs — instead of the issue — the solution will satisfy both parties.
“When both are willing to move ego out of the way, that’s the beginning of success,” says Billikopf. “When someone steps on our pride, we react defensively and in anger.”
In his experience as a mediator, he often has people interrupt just so they can get to their point. Instead he suggests listening first to understand, and only then repeat back your point of view as a question, such as “Do you mean…?”
If the person feels understood, they’ll be open to hearing the other person’s opinion. Steven Covey, in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says if you encourage others to explain their side first, they will be more likely to listen to and try to understand your side.
But don’t put on an act. “There’s no negotiation in the absence of sincerity,” says Billikopf.
When disagreements occur, try not to respond quickly. Cressman calls it his 24-second, 24-hour rule. “Take a few seconds to think about how this can help me, and how this can hurt me before you react,” he says. “Then, if it’s too complicated, take another 24 hours to think it through.”
Many successful people are generally slower to respond to tough questions because they take time to think before responding. “Sometimes with family, we have too much spontaneity,” says Cressman.
Some take silence to the extreme and use it as power over the people involved and the business. Also, bottling everything up can also be destructive to an individual. “Silence is control,” says Cressman. “By not interacting at all, you shut everything down in the business.”
One of his farm clients has a policy around meeting attendance. If one of the partners is not there, they’ll go looking for him before they start. Everyone’s opinion is important.
Usually with conflicts, the people involved suffer from a momentary inability to think about consequences and are willing to pay the price for their pride, no matter what the cost.
“Family disagreements never destroy family relationships, but family fights always will,” says Hanson. “When family fights develop, people say and do things that cause non-repairable damage.”
When you’re dealing with emotions, it’s tough to know where you’re going to end up. Simple disagreements turn into fights spilling over into family time. Arguments go beyond the boiling point, and tempers take over for thinking.
Cressman has met some people he thinks are actually addicted to the adrenaline rush they get from outbursts. Almost like drug addicts, they need these blow-ups to get their fix.
In Billikopf ‘s mediation experience, he has found that meeting with each conflicting party separately before mediation allows them to vent and he’s able to coach them on how to really listen to the other person.
With deep-seated conflicts, some people actually stop calling the other party by name, dehumanizing them. Yet everyone can build the skills to be good listeners, Billikopf says, although it can take a long time and it can’t be conditional. “It’s a gift to know how to listen and allow people to vent and not take it on,” he says. “Don’t give a solution, just let them release it and get rid of it.”
Other counsellors take other approaches. When Ron Hanson counsels a family, he never allows anyone to say anything negative about another person. “If there’s a problem, tell me how to fix it or how to find a solution,” he says. Allowing negative comments to surface during mediation only encourages more negative comments from others. Once that happens, the initial purpose of the meeting or discussion is lost and the fighting begins.
“Always search for fairness when resolving conflict,” Hanson says. “No one ever gets upset when being treated fairly.”
Maybe it’s time for a little honest self-assessment. After all, emotionally mature adults accept responsibility for themselves and the situation. Usually if we all change a little, we can make the situation better. How can my habits annoy other people? What can I do differently to make it better for other people?
“We generally love to be victims,” says Cressman. “But it’s never one person that causes a conflict entirely.”
Cressman says that invariably after meeting with the first couple, he’s expecting horns to be growing out of the head of the next couple. Instead he always find them to be very nice, normal people. Somehow when conflicts arise, we get very distorted views of each other.
More often than not, the problem is just habitual behaviour, especially in families where there’s a natural hierarchy. “Dysfunctional patterns within families that I’ve observed are learned before the age of 12,” says Cressman.
The old rule — don’t talk back to your elders — can mean that a business decision that goes against Dad’s wishes turns into a guiltfest. Unresolved relations between big and little brothers can turn a simple disagreement into a battle for control, and sometimes if baby sister is crying, maybe she’s simply trying to get her own way. After all, crying always worked when she was younger.
Once all parties are aware of the possibility that the disagreement might have more to do with power or old family habits, they’re more likely to focus on finding a solution. At least they try to stop playing into it.
“Always, always, always” says Cressman, “emotions trump logic.”
One of the key mistakes Hanson sees is when the relationship of father and adult son or father and adult daughter can’t break out of the pattern of a parent-child relationship. As the children gain maturity and prove their responsibility, parents, especially dads, must be willing to gradually share decision-making so that the children have a chance to learn and some day take over management control. This is not a short term process and takes a great deal of trust when you have millions riding on their decisions.
“Treat a son or daughter as an adult capable of making decisions and being responsible,” says Hanson.
Cressman says such conflicts start with the very best of intentions. Mom and dad want a better life for their children but forget that they built their own successes by learning from their failures. “The children need to learn to do things on their own, to fall in the dirt and get up on their own,” Cressman says.
“You can either be thankful or you can be frustrated,” says Cressman. “Being thankful is invigorating, but being frustrated takes energy.”
When he meets with the individual parties before bringing them together, Cressman assigns them the job of writing a list of things other family members done that they’re thankful for. For instance, he recently reviewed a gratitude statement he got by facsimile from one of his clients that listed nine positive points about the family member he was embroiled in a conflict with.
Compiling that list makes him feel better and helps him remember why he’s farming and what’s important to him, Cressman says.
Being thankful in a difficult moment can seem almost impossible. Yet when we look back at situations, we are often grateful that somehow, it worked out for the best. Being thankful in the middle of a conflict for how it’s potentially going to turn out takes a big dollop of faith but can really help you through it.
Billikopf uses gratitude statements in formal mediations. “While a number of issues can affect the likely success of a joint mediation session, perhaps none is as telling as asking each stake holder what they value in the other contender,” he says.
Above all else, Billikopf says, remember how precarious your happiness can be: “Our self-esteem is more fragile than most of us would like to admit.” CG
