Conflict is often viewed as negative but not having the right kind of conflict, often leads to bad conflict later.

In an earlier article, we discussed the importance of having trust amount your leadership and owner team. Your farm team may be open and honest with each other, trusting, but do you talk about tough issues or dodge them? What will happen if the issues never get resolved because no one wants to tackle the tough topic? Can the farm move ahead without dealing with the sticky issues?  

Many farms do not tackle the tough topics. Instead, farms often have some sort of artificial harmony. Everything is good. Everyone is good. We all get along all the time. We all agree on all things.

Really?

In Minnesota, we have taken artificial harmony to new heights and have even named it. We call it Minnesota Nice and it usually creates problems by masking issues.

Let’s look at a typical farm and how artificial harmony is rooted in a fear of conflict. Now before we go much farther, what do I mean by the ability to conflict?

Mastering conflict is the ability to have tough conservations and solve controversial challenges without destroying personal relationships and losing momentum.

Unfortunately, mastering conflict is hard and sometimes lacking in the family-owned business. Instead, a similar scenario sometimes plays out.

The son, father, and uncle all farm together. They are in the steady growth mode and the farm is going to be passed onto the nephew someday. The son and his wife would like to know how this transition will happen but don’t feel entitled to bring it up. They built a shop and the most logical place to put the new shop was near the machine shed on the main farm where nephew lives.

However, Uncle wanted the shop near his house so he could walk there. Uncle and Dad got into an argument and since Uncle yelled the loudest, the shop was built near his house.

They have been having meetings off and on (mostly off) but the son isn’t comfortable and tries to find an excuse to miss or leave the meetings early. The meetings don’t cover anything important because no one wants to talk about certain tough topics, such as transition planning. The topics were brought up once but it didn’t go well so no one wants to open that can of worms.

The farm is stuck because they haven’t mastered conflict around important topics.

What are some common symptoms to look for unhealthy conflict? Here are a few.

Whether a farm is large or whether it is small, changing how a family and farm deals with conflict is never easy. Old habits and traits are hard to break.

Yet, it is possible to break the mold.

The cure to mastering conflict

Solving tough topics is, well, tough. It isn’t easy and many farms stay stuck, unable to move ahead and unable to maintain the status quo. I believe many farms don’t have hard conversations because they haven’t first built enough trust. But for those farms that have tough conversations, solve problems, all while still maintaining friendly relations; it is an advantage that will flow to the bottom line year after year. 

The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Farm Futures or Farm Progress.