About This Episode
A short episode built out of a run of phone calls Chris Barron took in a single day, all of them fathers, sons, brothers and cousins with the same underlying problem. He puts communication behind roughly 80 percent of the conflict he sees in farm operations. The first of the three culprits is ego, and Shay Foulk is careful to say this is not only about the loudest person in the room. Ego includes self-esteem, and it shows up as a wall that goes up when criticism lands.
Insecurity is the second. Its most common form is fear of being wrong, which turns into doing something quietly and asking forgiveness later rather than raising it. Barron argues vulnerability is reciprocal: if a father can tell his son he handled something badly, the son can bring his own problems back. Foulk describes the alternative as a bull in a china shop, someone who barges through the conversation, accepts the wreckage as collateral damage, and gets through the immediate issue without fixing anything.
Control is the third and, in their experience, the one that stalls transition planning. Senior partners describe it as a ship slipping away from them, and junior partners respond by going around them and dictating. Foulk points out nobody buys inputs or markets grain the way they did 40 years ago, so the handoff should not look the same either. Barron's line is to give up control to gain control, and he notes employees interviewed without the owner present usually want more responsibility.
“Give up control and gain control.”
— Chris Barron
Key Takeaways
Barron traces roughly 80 percent of the conflict he sees in farm operations back to communication.
Ego is not only the boastful kind. It includes self-esteem, which is why almost everyone puts up a wall against constructive criticism.
The most common insecurity is fear of being wrong, which shows up as acting first and asking forgiveness later.
Give up control to gain control: handing off the planter, the seed order or the combine is what frees an owner to run the business.
Employees asked how things are going without the owner in the room usually say they would take on more responsibility than they are given.
Cross-train now, because the operation still has to run on a day you cannot be there.
Full Transcript
Narrator: We are grateful that you are joining us for another episode of the Ag View Pitch, as we know that your time is very valuable. Our team at Ag View Solutions is always here for you for any questions or comments that you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. And now here is your host, Chris Barron.
Shay
Foulk: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today you have Shay Foulk and Chris Barron coming at you with just a short, you know, probably 10-minute conversation here on 3 key issues that we see in communication. And Chris, you called me today and said, hey, these are, you know, a few things I've been thinking about while I was running on the treadmill. And I think they're some key messaging. So the first one we're going to talk about today is ego and how can that affect farm operations? Why do we see it as one of the key communication issues, Chris?
Chris
Barron: Yeah, well, there's 3. That's number 1 of the 3. And ego is, you know, well, it's funny because, you know, like I called you today and I'm like, hey, we need to talk about this. I think I had I don't know, at least 3 or 4 phone calls today just on communication and some issues between father, son, brothers, cousins that work together. And communication is always that big thing, right? And ego is something that is occasionally kind of a big deal. It's almost always in part of the communication conflict though. And a lot of times I think we look at it, or if you think of ego, we think, well, that's not me. I'm not the one that's got the issue, it's the other person. And I think we think that subconsciously, and it's really probably something that we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, okay, how much of this is me? And that's an important thing.
The other one too, I think, on the ego side of it is sometimes we're not that good at taking constructive criticism. And so when we talk to these clients and, you know, communication being probably the 80/20 rule, 80% of the time, it's like, you know, this is— these are the issues we have. And it stems to communication probably 80% of the time. And when you think about it, constructive criticism, do you receive it well? And most of us probably don't as well as we should because we don't want to hear what we're not doing right. But sometimes we need to reflect a little bit, step back and be okay. Yeah, I'm not— I could be doing better there.
Shay
Foulk: With your constructive criticism too, you know, we use this word ego. I want to make sure people understand that it's not just big ego that we're focusing on. Everybody is guilty of this. So it's not just someone that's being the most boastful and proud of themselves and look at me, look how good I am. Everybody has ego, whether you realize it or not. When you look up synonyms for ego, one of the things that comes up is self-esteem. And so sometimes when we feel threatened or we feel that we have this sense of inadequacy, that comes with the constructive criticism conversation, that's when we unconsciously put up this wall, put up this defense and say, "Well, no, this isn't right," or, "He's doing something different," and it gets in the way of this clear communication that is probably really a good thing, but we instinctively put up that wall.
Everybody is subject to it, not just big ego.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. And a lot of times, I think subconsciously we think, "Just deal with it." This is just how it is, you know, it's like, you know, we all kind of got to get along here. And, you know, it's, it just comes back to that communication thing. You know, we, we don't always have to be right. And I think a lot of times that's, that, that comes back to, like you said, that self-esteem, you know, it's like, well, don't bring me down to that level. And so anyway, I think ego is a good one. We can hit the next one if you're ready.
Shay
Foulk: Yeah. So talking a little bit about insecurity and Someone with a big ego might not think that they have any insecurities, but when we look at communication, it can be a huge player. And sometimes it's not just the insecurity from the standpoint of, are we good enough? Do we know our job? But just a feeling of inadequacy or maybe not understanding the picture as clearly as we should. And so, we can put up that same wall there too.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. Some of the biggest ones, I think, within security is— or the biggest one that, you know, that we see, and, and that, you know, I'm guilty of this one too, is just, is just fear. You know, we don't want to be wrong. We don't want to screw something up. We, you know, we might just go do something and not even tell anybody else. And sometimes it's like, I'm going to ask for forgiveness instead of permission here and just do this because I'm afraid of the answer. Um, you know, it also is like, you know, are you okay with being vulnerable? You know, can you go to your kid and say, you know, hey, I screwed up here, I'm not doing this well enough? Or can, you know, can, can your kid come to you if, if, you know, it's a father-son or, or brothers or whatever it is and say, hey, I, I don't get this, I'm not doing this right, you know, we need to fix something.
And just being vulnerable and being okay with that, knowing that it's a safe conversation, because I think sometimes You know, it feels like, well, I don't know if I'm that vulnerable, if I want to let myself be that way because I don't want to be taken advantage of. And I think a lot of times if you show some vulnerability, you get back what you give. You know, if you give that, you're going to get that back. And I think a lot of times people are just so guarded that, you know, we don't open up the lines of communication because of that. And then, you know, a lot of it is just conflict avoidance. I think a lot of times It's just easier to not talk, right? If we don't talk about it, it'll go away. And I think those are kind of the 3 key things really within security, I think. Any other comments from you?
Shay
Foulk: So this is probably part of this whole communication discussion that we're having here, but in particular within security, when you talk about fear, the first thing that came to mind when you said that was a bull in a china shop. Right. And sometimes just, you know, the bull walks in and knocks over the first piece of glass and starts freaking out and just starts running around and smashing everything in sight. And you just kind of accept that as collateral damage when it comes to insecurity. And I think about, you know, farm operations or business owners, ag business team communications that break down, and you have one player or two players that just say, to heck with it, we're just gonna, we're just gonna barge through and continue on like this bull in the china shop and whatever the collateral damage is, it is. And unfortunately, that's not sustainable long-term.
It might get you through whatever issues at hand, but it doesn't create that vulnerability that you're talking about. And it's just a reaction based on fear or that feeling of inadequacy that we face with insecurity. So, third point here is control. And talk to me a little bit about how you think of control when it comes to communication.
Chris
Barron: Well, as farmers, we're not very independent, right? We don't—
Shay
Foulk: uh, oh, I've never seen an independent farmer.
Chris
Barron: You know, we all are just ingrained in us because that's how we were raised, that's how we grew up. Um, we're just gonna do it ourselves, you know, just get out of the way, let me do it, I can do it right. I mean, I was— I used to be guilty, you know, my kids would be out power washing something and, and I grabbed the grab the wand out of their hands and let me show you how to do this, you know, or you're working on something and you, you grab the tools and say, watch me do this instead of, you know, letting them do it, let them do some of those things and make some mistakes. And I think that's just a good lesson. But it goes even further than that, right?
That's, that's some of the small stuff, you know, some of the big things, you know, you think about, you know, well, this is how we've always done it, you know, when we deal with landowners, we don't share anything with them or whatever, you know, that's an example came to my head. But you know, there's the old way, and then there's the new way. And I'm not saying the old way is right. And I'm not saying the new way is right. But a lot of times somewhere in the middle is probably the right place to be. And if we are so hanging on so much to that control, and it comes back to the ego a little bit too.
But if we hold on to that control so much that we don't allow the senior partner or the junior partner to have some control in certain areas of the business, I think it really limits the business and it over time starts to screw up the communication because people start becoming a little bit frustrated with that internally. And that goes back to the insecurity where sometimes you avoid the conflict because, you know, well, I should be doing that. I could do this better. I could do that better. And we don't even talk about it, you know. So those are some really the big things. And then the other thing that's always funny, too, you know, and Shay, you can attest to this, we sit down a lot of times, we'll ask employees, you know, how's things going in the operation without the owners of the operation there, or the managers. And you get the real story, right?
You know, it's like, well, you know, it's, it's okay. But, you know, I, I don't get to do some of the things I want to do, or I don't feel like I have the responsibility that I could live up to a lot of times. And I think a lot of times we just, we We could get a lot more out of our employees than sometimes I think we think we can. But it's sometimes because we don't allow them, because obviously they can't do it as well as we can. Or at least that's the thought in our mind, you know, well, they don't, you know, if I put them in the planter, they're going to screw it up and I want to do it myself, you know. Well, what happens if you get ran over by a beer truck tomorrow and you can't walk or you can't be there? And, you know, and it comes right back to cross-training, that control.
Is something that is a real big one, I think, on the communication side that leads to a lot of other issues.
Shay
Foulk: One area that I would emphasize on the control piece that we see all the time, Chris, is transition planning. And people feel that they need to have— I think they almost think of it as like a sinking ship, like it's slipping away from me. And particularly, not to pick on anybody because it goes both ways, and I'm going to make an example of that here quick. So You know, don't just jump to the defense of the senior operator here. But what I would say is that fear of the unknown, it almost feels like it's a sinking ship, like I'm losing control, I'm stepping away from the business. I've taken forever to do this. And, and all you have as a frame of reference is, as a senior partner, is what you went through. You know, and times have changed so much in the last 40 years. Someone made a good point the other day of, well, do you buy your inputs the same way that you did 40 years ago?
Do you market the same way that you did 40 years ago? Are we using the same ag ergonomic advice as 40 years ago? Well, no, we're not. And so that transition piece needs to look different probably than what it did at that time. But transition planning is the hardest thing that you have to do once in your life. And where the transition planning really breaks down is not that everybody doesn't have the right intentions in place, but the communication goes to hell in a handbasket in a quick hurry because you have people that really struggle with the control. And like I said, I'm not going to pick on just the senior operations here. But everybody is prone to not talk about it because the senior generation thinks, "Well, we never really talked about it. This is how we did it. And it was simpler back then." And the younger generation's like, "Well, the older gen, they just don't get it.
How do they not see that this is the best way to do it?" And you talk about that communication of how do we meet in the middle somewhere? Somewhere there's that reality of control because we do see junior operations that are like, "Well, to heck with it if dad or mom or uncle or whoever isn't going to get on board." bored with it, I'm just gonna go ahead and do it myself. And I'm going to control the situation, I'm going to dictate it. And we see that go not very well sometimes either. So I think the key thing here with the communication in these 3 issues that we outlined, that ego, that insecurity, and that control, there's 3 things, or, you know, a few ways that we can address that. And probably the first one is just open up the communication channels, you know, sit down and have a dialogue. And probably create some of that vulnerability, wouldn't you say?
Chris
Barron: Oh yeah, for sure. And I want to tack on to what you were saying on the control too, on the transition stuff. I just thought of a really cool tagline here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, um, this will be my— yeah, this will be my quote: give up control and gain control. How's that? That pretty cool?
Shay
Foulk: I like it.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, that's good. What's that?
Shay
Foulk: We'll make t-shirts.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, there you go. Give up control and gain control. I mean, then the reason I say that, I mean, I, I've been blessed in our operation. We've got really good people that can do stuff. But I remember when I felt like I was the only one that could run the planter, I was the only one that could run the combine, I was the only one that could do a lot of the stuff. You know, I ordered the seed, I knew the chemicals, I knew all that stuff. But if you start giving up some of that stuff and let somebody else take control of some of those things, you gain control, if that makes sense. I mean, because you can't do everything, you can't be everything, you can't get everything done. And I know there's people out there listening, they're like, "Well, I'm trying to find employees in the first place." But I understand that. But when you get them, you have to give them some control.
You have to give them those opportunities. And so—
Shay
Foulk: And if you're not thinking about that when you go to hire someone, you're not going to fix the issue when you do have the right person in place.
Chris
Barron: Yeah. Be okay with hiring somebody that's smarter than you because they'll get what you give again. But I like that though.
Shay
Foulk: Yeah, just opening up those channels, checking your ego, right? I think everybody needs to take a look at that. Even if you do a really good job, even if you're humble, you feel that you have open communication, it's really natural for everybody to put up a defense mechanism or have a wall when you're met with criticism, even if it is constructive. Be vulnerable. And then ultimately, like you said, give up control to gain control. That's what's actionable. That's what we hope that you kind of take away from this messaging. And build these key strategies, build the key points into your communication as you move forward in the week ahead. Planting season is already happening for people in the Southern United States right now. We got farm operations that are rolling and it's gonna be right around the corner for those of us in the Midwest and into Canada.
So keep these key strategies in mind and be thinking about it as we move forward. Any final thoughts, Chris?
Chris
Barron: Yeah, I would just say go back. This is a good one to go back and listen to again. Write the 3 words down, ego. Insecurity and control and just kind of self-reflect a little bit, look back at yourself and say, how am I doing in these areas? And do I need to be coaching some of my team to be better? But we need to be better ourselves first. So that was my final comment. Give up control and gain control. How's that? That's pretty cool.
Shay
Foulk: Amen. We'll let you guys know when we drop the t-shirt order. So thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and we will catch you next time.