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Including Family Relations Training in Estate Planning Workshops for Farmers

Alex Chan and Paul Goeringer

Summary

Estate planning is a contentious issue for farm families. The owning generation may feel threatened if their legacy is not protected, the younger generation may have a history of feeling left out of decision-making, and all family members may want to avoid conflict in general. Research tells us that it is difficult to access logical problem-solving skills when in a highly agitated state. Thus, communication breakdowns and resulting high emotions are a threat to putting together effective farm succession plans. With the funding from ERME, we developed a revised estate planning workshop for farm families which includes explicit training on communication skills for highly emotional situations. The core of the communication skills training is a technique for enhancing perspective-taking between parties. Participants are taught to assess who they are talking to, how the other person’s personality influences the way that they should raise issues, and how to validate another person’s perspective to keep the conversation moving when faced with resistance. Initial data (more to be collected by the time of the conference) suggests that participants gain an understanding of how family conflict influences succession planning, as well as how to use specific conflict management skills that we teach in session.

Details

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