Beyond Succession: Building a family farm that thrives

Beyond Succession: Building a family farm that thrives

In farming, succession is often talked about like a transaction. A handover, a spreadsheet, a legal structure, a date on a calendar.

But Karen Penfold’s story reminds us that succession is not a transaction at all. It’s a life choice, and a relationship choice, and a culture choice. Most importantly, if we treat it like paperwork, we may miss the thing that actually determines whether a farm business survives a generational shift. People.

Karen owns a large farm in southwest Queensland with her husband Dan and their four daughters, all of whom work in the business. Like many farming families, they have built land and assets over time and have carried debt to do it. And as many will understand, they have also experienced the kind of succession tension that quietly erodes trust until it becomes impossible to ignore.

Karen calls it ‘round one’.

Round one was not about their current farm. It was an earlier family succession experience, shaped by the context and thinking of the time, and without a clearly defined process to guide it. It was emotional, fast, and driven by frustration rather than design. It eroded relationships, impacted the children, and ultimately forced Karen and Dan to leave and start again on their own, taking on significant debt and building from scratch.

But, out of that experience came a decision that shaped the next two decades: We will never do that again.

That sentence was not said lightly. And it wasn’t reactive; it was a leadership decision. And it marked the beginning of a different kind of succession thinking, long before they were anywhere near transitioning their own business.

The real risk is not the bank.

One of the most critical insights Karen shared is that the things with the most potential to blow up family businesses are seldom the money.

Money matters, of course. So does debt, and interest, and revenue. But in most farm businesses, the real fragility sits somewhere else. It sits in the conversations that don’t happen. The assumptions that remain unspoken. The resentment disguised as “just get on with it”. The power dynamics no one names because naming them feels like lighting a match.

In round one, the prevailing strategy was avoidance. “Ignore it. Sweep it under the carpet. It will go away.”

But it didn’t go away. It built quietly over time. Tension became part of the atmosphere of the farm. And Karen could see it landing on their children, who were very young at the time, especially their eldest, who was old enough to sense that something wasn’t right.

That was the turning point.

Karen and Dan realised that if they didn’t lead hard conversations in their own future, those conversations would one day lead them. And in round one, when it finally came to a head, it did so in frustration, under pressure, and with damage done.

What changed everything wasn’t a plan.

Nearly twenty years later, when Karen and Dan found themselves preparing for round two, this time succession planning for their own farm and their own daughters, they approached it completely differently.

They did something many families talk about, but few actually commit to: they brought in an external facilitator. Not because they lacked intelligence or capability, but because they understood a different truth – there will be better conversations and outcomes if there is someone else in the room.

A good facilitator doesn’t give you the answers. They create the conditions where people feel safe to say what they’ve been carrying. They ask the questions that families avoid because everyone is too close to the consequences.

In their first two-day facilitated session, Karen expected some challenges. Instead, she watched something surprising unfold; everyone wanted the same thing.

That realisation alone can shift a family system. Because once people see they are pulling on the same strigs, the energy changes. Collaboration is smoother and responsibility becomes shared.

But for Karen, the most surprising shift came later. And it wasn’t from structure, or paperwork or decisions, it was from values.

Values are operational.

Karen described values as the thing she didn’t expect to matter most. But in hindsight, values became the anchor that kept their business and family aligned as complexity increased.

Karen and Dan’s family values are lived every day. They’re written on the fridge, visible to everyone, and they guide on-farm decisions, such as how and who they hire. Values guide how they lead and what they’ll tolerate.

After twelve months of embedding and living their values, they reviewed them and moved ‘fun and laughter’ to the top. That’s strategic. If you are going to work every day and hate it, something is broken.

In farming, we often normalise exhaustion as commitment. We treat burnout as the cost of building something. But fun and laughter being number one is a boundary. It says: ‘we are building a business that people want to stay in. We are building a life that feels worth inheriting’.

That’s succession thinking at its highest level. Because the next generation doesn’t just inherit land. They inherit a culture.

Communication is a discipline.

Throughout the process, Karen kept coming back to communication as the thing that makes, or breaks. Her family didn’t start as great communicators. But they became better by treating communication like a skill you practise, not something you either have or don’t.

Today, communication is a standing agenda item and built into simple systems so that decisions and information are openly shared. Key numbers are reported weekly, so everyone understand the business reality, not just the story about the reality. And over time, the understanding of cash flow and confidence in decision making across all the family members has increased.

But importantly, they have also learned to separate operational noise from strategic thinking. In many farming businesses, operational urgency consumes everything. The work is real. The pressure is real. But if every conversation is about today, then tomorrow arrives unplanned. So, a shift to quarterly meetings, with clear actions and named responsibility, has created a rhythm where strategic leadership has space to exist. And this is what so many people are really seeking. Not more information, but more capability to hold the right conversations, at the right level, in the right way.

The leadership moment is often the hardest one.

Karen was candid about something that will resonate for many women. The hardest part can be getting the men on board. This isn’t because men don’t care, but more so because they’ve been trained to carry responsibility alone. So, the idea of opening up the business, the fears, and the unknowns can feel like losing control.

But what happened when Dan stepped into the process is central to the outcomes they have today. He moved from carrying many of the decisions to sharing responsibility. He found relief in clarity. He saw that structure and open conversation strengthens leadership.

And now as the daughters have partners entering the picture, they have the foundation to openly and honestly talk through the hard topics. Death. Divorce. What happens if things don’t work out. These conversations are the sign of a family that respects everyone enough to design for reality. And this is what mature leadership looks like. It doesn’t rely on hope; it relies on honesty.

A different definition of wealth.

Karen and Dan also have a view on the meaning of wealth. Often, visible assets equal available wealth. But as we all know, land rich doesn’t necessarily mean cash rich. And when people assume “there’s plenty of money”, it can create resentment, especially for the next generation working hard without feeling financially secure.

So, their approach was deliberate; pay people well now, provided the business can sustain it. Encourage off farm investing and build individual financial stability alongside collective legacy. Because if succession becomes a long wait for an inheritance that may never be realised unless land is sold, it turns into tension. And the reality is that most farming families don’t actually want to sell – they want to keep building for future generations.

What we can all take from this.

Karen’s insights land because they cut through the noise. They remind us that family business sustainability isn’t built on working harder, it’s built on leading differently.

Here’s what her story makes possible for anyone in a farm business, whether you are the daughter, the partner, the owner, or the next generation quietly wondering if there is a place for you.

1. Start the conversation before the crisis forces it
2. Treat communication like a system, not a hope
3. Make values visible, and live by them
4. Create a rhythm where strategy has space, not just operations
5. Use an external facilitator if the conversation keeps looping
6. Make the hard topics safe to name
7. Remember succession is a life choice, not a transaction

Perhaps the biggest insight Karen leaves us with is that parents set more than direction. They set tone; not just for the business, but for the culture that sits underneath it. The next generation doesn’t only inherit land and livestock, they also inherit the way disagreements are handled, how power is shared, and the way respect is shown.

These things shape whether they stay. They also shape whether the legacy continues in a positive way. And so perhaps Karen’s story gently prompts a question:

If your farm business is built on family, what are you modelling right now about how hard conversations are handled?

Are there things being parked because they feel uncomfortable? And what might shift if those conversations were led earlier rather than later?

Karen’s experience doesn’t suggest this is easy. But it does suggest it’s possible. Communication can be learned. Values can be defined and evolved. Systems can change and trust can grow again.

But in Karen and Dan’s case, it started with a simple decision: We will create a legacy our daughters are proud to inherit.