Now that you’ve identified the worst that could happen, let’s shift focus to something more hopeful: your goals and desired outcomes!
Setting forth clear goals and outcomes will help you create the most appropriate governance document terms. Knowing what goals and outcomes you’re working towards will also help you manage your time and meetings efficiently, relating tasks, questions, and ideas back to the goal.
It’s a bit like making a clear plan for dinner. If you’ve spent a long day out working in the field, but you’ve made a plan for dinner, perhaps some pasta with your favorite sauce and a cookie from a batch you made a couple days ago, you’ll be more motivated to finish up your to-do list to get home and eat. That’s the goal! On the other hand, if you have no plans for dinner you may find yourself working beyond your energy capacity and not doing as good of a job as you’d like because you don’t have a clear meal plan in mind. Hey, it happens to the best of farmers!
To avoid wasting time and energy, you can apply this logic to your governance document, too. Rather than a meal plan, setting forth clear goals and outcomes for your governance document will help keep you and your co-owners focused and on track.
Try this: Hoping for the Best with Clear Goals and Outcomes (~1.5HR exercise)
Take your list of “worst things” and identify a goal for improving each situation. You can do this by writing down a goal next to each “worst thing” in your list, or creating a table like the one below. Plan for 5 minutes to set a goal for each worst thing in your list, taking more time as needed.
For example:
| Worst Thing | Goal |
|---|---|
| A business partner takes out a loan that’s more than we can afford to pay off… | Create a procedure for deciding when to take out a loan |
| As business partners who are also romantic partners, we break up… | Create a plan for either or both partners to exit the business |
| One of us gets injured and can’t farm anymore… | Identify different levels of ownership and corresponding responsibilities that address non-farming participation |
Next, take 5 minutes to identify a clear, measurable outcome for each goal.
For example:
| Worst Thing | Goal | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| A business partner takes out a loan that’s more than we can afford to pay off… | Create a procedure for deciding when to take out a loan | All owners have clarity on when and how loan applications are made |
| As business partners who are also romantic partners, we break up… | Create a plan for either or both partners to exit the business | Each partner understands the steps that will be taken if either party wants to exit the business |
| One of us gets injured and can’t farm anymore… | Identify different levels of ownership and corresponding responsibilities that address non-farming participation | All owners have clarity on what ownership in the business can look like, if and when their ability to farm changes |