Prior Consulting was invited to work with a group of agronomists – specialists who provide advice and guidance to farmers covering a wide range of areas including land management, cropping, crop treatment, farming finances and farm stewardship.
The group – a mixed group including both seasoned agronomists with many years’ experience and colleagues new to the industry studying “Basis” – one of the key qualifications required to work as an agronomist, wanted to both share experience and build new skills in the areas of negotiation, dealing with rejection and conflict management.
Agronomy is a competitive industry with specialists working to win business from farmers, estate managers and land owners who often have long-standing relationships with their agronomists going back many years. It is essential that team members are able to build rapport, make connections, establish credibility and build trust – build powerful connections to get a foot-in-the-door and from this build new clients / working relationships.
Agronomists are, understandably, a busy bunch of guys and any time away from their clients’ needs to be worth their while. As we found out, people helping them build their skills have to demonstrate their credibility, not only in terms of the skills being explored, but also in understanding their environment – the “farmer test”!
To support the team, Prior Consulting built a two-day workshop around a series of real-life scenarios, each selected to explore the relationship building / maintaining issues the client wanted to focus on. We then engaged two “real-life” farmers and worked with them to take on the farmer characters in each of the scenarios.
Working ‘on location’ – an actual working farm, we then worked using Forum Theatre – enabling all the participants to try different approaches and techniques to deal with the real-life scenarios. The conversations were interspersed with discussion / exploration of relevant concepts to embed the learning.
It was fantastic to see the way in which the more experienced colleagues supported the learning of the more junior colleagues, how everyone engaged enthusiastically once initial nerves and “is this really worth my while” concerns had evaporated. We recognised how different personality types influence the way people engage – exploring practical approaches to adapt to better connect with those preferences, how trust and the quality of the working relationship underpin everything, how to win-around even the most sceptical / hard-nosed of farmers!
Our “real-life” farmers are contenders for next year’s BAFTAs and I am pleased to say, we passed the “Farmer Test” with some great feedback and commitment to action from the participants.
What can we do to help your organisation build connections and better meet the needs of your stakeholders? Get in touch!
Building an Accountable Culture
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