Why trust, safety and consent is integral to the farm succession process
“When there’s trust, safety, and I have permission to manage the process, all the people involved in a farm succession process can relax a bit. ”
“It’s hard to create, when you're managing a perceived sense of disturbance, or threat, or feel like you might be attacked. All of that stifles the creative process, and you can't get to agreement without being creative.
When you’re safe, and there's trust, and you’ve allowed someone to manage the process, it allows you to deeply listen, and understand other people's perspectives. You can understand that others are looking at what you’re looking at, just from a different angle. Once you have those conditions in place, it allows you to shift around the table and see how other people view things. And that melts something, it crystallises something, it changes something.
It's important to have everyone in the meeting included. Some people are more expressive than others. Meeting facilitation is me pausing the people who are more expressive, and allowing the people who are less expressive to talk. Because they often have really important things to say. But if there’s a natural order of volume - whoever is the loudest gets to talk the most - you won't get to hear those quieter voices. Meeting facilitation means everyone’s included. When you hear all the voices, that helps the process, and it helps the outcome. It helps people move to agreement. Sometimes the quietest voices have the most powerful messages. The meeting facilitator can draw those voices out - and reflect on it.
The order of seniority is another thing to consider in this type of discussion. It’s an ancient tradition, to honour the elders. In succession planning meetings, it’s the elders who own the asset that’s being discussed, and progressed, so their opinions are important. There’s a natural process there - and it’s important to give reference to it, and help the younger people honour the elders. The elder voice is not the ruling voice - but it is important. I’ve developed a process, where I allow these voices to be respected, and everyone gets to speak.”
Gregory Dale, MediatingWorks
Gregory Dale from MediatingWorks talking about why trust, safety and consent are so important in the farm succession process