The Planning Coordinator

To be successful your farm succession plan must be collaborative – ideas, experiences, and insights flowing back and forth between members of the family and your team of professional advisers.

It has been my experience that when you are able to work with your professional advisors as a team your chances of success are multiplied dramatically.

It is true, planning works better when several voices join together – the experiences of one professional combined with the special knowledge of another will make the resulting proposition more effective.

That’s the planning phase – but to get to the planning phase we must first invest the time to define the dreams and goals of the family.

We must collect our history – all those decisions that have resulted in the collection of assets, liabilities, organization structure, and existing contracts and documents that make up the farm you’re intent on passing down to the next generation.

To get to the planning phase someone must spearhead the process, the collection of information, and be the go-between with family members and the advisor group.

That someone we call the “planning coordinator” – the person who is formally put in charge of expediting the work being done in order to keep the ball rolling.

Let’s face it, somebody is going to end up winning the fight to see who’s in charge anyway, so why not appoint the individual you believe is the right person for the job before a needless energy draining battle for who’s in charge depletes everybody’s energy and causes avoidable conflict from the very beginning of the process.

As I already said, this role doesn’t require any special training or expertise. In fact a person with common sense and a healthy curiosity may be the best choice.

The less the planning coordinator knows about what’s possible to achieve the more likely they’ll be to listen attentively to everybody’s ideas.

In other words when it comes to being an effective planning coordinator, a caveman can do it.

Naturally the planning coordinator can be chosen from among your existing advisors. I don’t like this because it implies favoritism for them and their ideas. And if you later have to fire them they’ll take all your family secrets with them.

Plus your traditional advisors charge by the hour. By the time you and everyone else tell them what’s important the first time, will you want them to go around again for clarification or will you balk at spending more money to talk about the subject and settle for “close enough” planning?

Probably the best person on your existing team of professional advisors is your life insurance agent. That’s because they don’t charge by the hour and they only get paid when people take action – usually at the conclusion of the planning process. Your life insurance agent is most likely to stay focused and push the process toward its conclusion.

That’s the theory anyway. From a practical perspective the other members of the planning team may think that the insurance agents actions are solely motivated by their desire to make a sale. If that’s what the other advisors believe then they’re likely to spend their time and your money second guessing the agent.

In my experience the best choice for the role of planning coordinator is often the successor – since he or she has the most to gain or lose by the plans that are or are not made. They know most of the history already, they can usually ask the hard questions and get answers (or they’ll tell their mother)- they do not charge for their time and if they are committed to the future, they’ll stick with it for as long as it takes.

And before I forget, there is another person – not a member of your traditional team of professionals, one that is trained in the skill of dynamic inquiry, and one who will charge based on the project, so you don’t feel they are adding to the bill just because they want to go over something again.

That’s the professionally trained business coach.

When you are working out who should be your farm’s planning coordinator consider each of these options.

Maybe the ideal solution for you is a joint effort with your successor and a business coach sharing the chores?

Whoever you choose here are some more questions for them to ask – getting to what’s important.

No matter who’s chosen to act as the planning coordinator they’ll have their work cut out for them.The above questions will help them begin to sort out for themselves, the rest of the family, and the advisors “where we are right now” the starting point for all successful planning.All the best!

Wayne Messick