Communication: is it the cause of our problems, or the key to solving them?
I spend a lot of time in the car (this week I did 1390km in 3 days). And if I'm honest, most of it is spent either on the phone or in my head. Yes, I'm that person. The one making calls, having a chat, building connections somewhere between one property and the next. But in the quieter moments (or when I have no phone service), when the phone is down and it's just me and the road, the conversations don't stop, they just move inward.
The chats I have with myself would make for an interesting study, I'm sure. It's not always pretty. There have been times in my life when that internal dialogue has tipped into doomscrolling, catastrophising, and spiralling into places that weren't helpful or healthy. This was particularly evident in the years after my brother died. Now it’s more when I'm tired, when the workload is heavier than usual, (usually of my own making) or when I haven't carved out enough time to talk through my thoughts and concerns with the people I trust most.
I've had to work hard at that and it remains a work in process. Learning to notice when the internal dialogue shifts from reflection to rumination, and choosing to do something about it, has taught me something no textbook ever could: the conversations we have with ourselves set the tone for every conversation we have with others.
And lately, one theme keeps surfacing in both the calls and the quiet: communication.
In every conversation and workshop, this keeps coming up
Over the past six weeks I've facilitated numerous workshops and one-on-one conversations with agribusiness clients, farming families, and stakeholders. Shopkeepers aren't safe either. I'll ask anyone how their day is going. Across all of it, the same thread runs through almost every challenge I hear about, whether it's managing staff, navigating farm business performance, or leading through uncertainty.
It always comes back to communication.
After years of working in agribusiness consulting and coaching, I've come to believe that being a clear communicator is one of the most significant contributors to business performance and farm profitability. Not strategy alone. Not capital alone. Communication underpins all of it, and yet it's the thing most businesses invest the least time in getting right.
Recently, I was given feedback following a meeting in which I'd expressed a difficult position. Respectfully, clearly and without backing down. It wasn't comfortable. But I left that room having said what needed to be said, and that matters. Brené Brown talks about finding your voice and having the courage to use it. That's not a concept I just share with clients. It's something I've worked hard on, continue to work on, and genuinely believe in.
Because one of the worst feelings in communication isn't conflict. It's leaving a meeting wishing you'd said something.
It's not just what you say
I spend a significant part of my working life in conversation, on the phone, face to face, and through voice message platforms like Voxer. There's something about the walkie-talkie style that works particularly well with my agribusiness clients. It's personal without being intrusive, and it captures tone and nuance in a way that a text or email simply can't.
Every mode of communication has its place, and its limits:
A phone call or one-on-one conversation is a privilege. You can read tone, respond in the moment, and build genuine trust. But without follow-up it can be misremembered or interpreted differently by each person in the room.
Written communication creates a record and gives the reader time to process. But strip out tone and body language and you lose the human warmth that often carries the real meaning. How many misunderstandings have started with an email?
Non-verbal communication, the pause, the posture, the expression, often says more than the words ever do. But only if you're present enough to notice, and in a world of screens and distractions, that's harder than it sounds.
The best communicators don't pick one mode and stick to it. They read the situation, read the person, and adjust.
The paddock, the boardroom, the roadside
This holds whether you're working with your internal team or managing relationships with your bank, accountant, solicitor, agronomist, livestock agent, or industry body. The farming businesses that perform best are almost always the ones where communication with key stakeholders is intentional, consistent, and clear.
And it's not just in business. I've recently been facilitating roadside weed management workshops, bringing together farmers, local government, road authorities, and neighbours, all with a shared problem and a shared responsibility. What keeps emerging as one of the key pillars of best practice roadside weed management? Communication. It removes assumptions about who is responsible for what, allows people to fact-check what they think they know, and builds a shared understanding of the problem before anyone attempts a shared solution. When people communicate well, things get done. When they don't, responsibilities blur and problems quietly compound.
Before you have the conversation
What separates good communicators from great ones is intention. Before any significant conversation, it's worth slowing down long enough to ask:
What is the single thing I need to achieve here?
What is my role, and what is the role of the other person?
How will I know they've actually understood?
What bias am I bringing, consciously or unconsciously?
How does this person best receive information, verbally, in writing, or do they need time to sit with it before responding?
That last one is the question most people skip. We communicate in the way that suits us, and then wonder why the message didn't land.
When communication breaks down, so does performance
There are a handful of areas where poor communication shows up most directly in business outcomes.
Bank and financier relationships.Farming businesses that stay in regular contact with their financiers, share updated figures, and flag challenges before they become crises are in a very different position to those who only pick up the phone when things are difficult. Don't wait to be asked. Come prepared with current data, a clear read on your business performance, and an honest account of the risks you're managing.
Supplier relationships. The clients who get the call when stock is tight or prices are about to move are the ones who've already been having the conversation. Not because they're pushy, but because they've built a genuine relationship. They pay their bills on time. They treat their suppliers with respect. They don't just make contact when they need something. That starts with communication, long before you're in a position where you need a favour.
Setting and managing expectations. More conflict in agribusiness stems from unmet expectations than almost anything else, and unmet expectations are almost always a communication failure. The expectation was never clearly set, or it was assumed to be understood when it never actually was. Be specific. Vague instructions produce vague results. Be clear about what success looks like, by when, and how you will both know it has been achieved.
Succession and family business dynamics. Succession is one of the most avoided conversations in any farming family, and the cost of that avoidance shows up in deferred investment decisions, key people who drift away, and businesses that stall because nobody wanted to have the hard conversation first. It doesn't have to happen all at once. Starting with broader questions, what does everyone want the business to look like in ten years, what role does each person see themselves playing, can open the door without the pressure of resolving everything at once.
The conversations you're avoiding are costing you
Farming businesses are operating in one of the more unpredictable environments in recent memory. Fuel prices are volatile. Fertiliser costs and supply chains continue to shift. Sitting back and hoping things stabilise is a strategy of sorts, but it's not a particularly good one. Picking up the phone and having an honest conversation with your suppliers, your bank, your advisor, brings current clarity to an uncertain situation and moves decision making away from assumption and towards accurate, up to date information.
We can work with what we know. What's harder to work with is a decision made on information that's six months out of date.
When did someone last tell you that you're doing a good job
We spend so much time focused on what needs fixing that we forget how much it means to simply tell someone they're doing something right. When did someone last pay you a genuine compliment? Acknowledge something you did well? Recognise the effort behind the result? It costs nothing and it lands harder than most people expect.
Master both sides of this, the courage to say the hard thing, and the generosity to say the good thing, and almost everything in your agribusiness, and your life, gets easier.
Ready to work on this in your business?
AgCelerate is my one-on-one program designed specifically for farming families and agribusiness operators who want to perform better, communicate more clearly, and lead with confidence. If any of this has resonated with you, I'd love to work with you through it.
Find out more and book an introductory call here.