Most farmers and agribusiness owners seem to have a good idea of what they want to achieve when they think about succession. Yet their ideas may be a bit fuzzy and undefined. As they describe their desires they use general terms, and tend to say, ‘you-know' a lot.

The struggle comes in trying to turn intentions into goals; goals into actions; and actions into results. If we can help you create specific goals you can take the action necessary to move to the next step.

Use this series of questions to help you become more specific. Take a few moments and consider your situation; answer the questions and note your responses. Then ask your spouse, parents and active children to do the same. Compare answers and see how your succession goals align.

1.      Maintain the Operational Integrity

Transitioning to new ownership/management should be an obvious natural next step to growing our operation. So we will incrementally transition responsibilities to the next generation (successive manager[s]) over the next ____ years.

To increase management capabilities we will utilize:

____ Formal education

____ Various experiences

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