# 167 - Enrolling the next generation - the McArthur Family Story

It provides them with a sense of ownership, like they're actually contributing to the actual direction that we're going.

It's not just mum and dad that are driving this whole thing. It's a group. And the older that they're getting, you know, we can convince ourselves that, oh, that's a good idea. But then they are looking at it from a different perspective. And yeah, they ask pointy questions, like, and you go, right, okay, like stand back. And that's the healthy thing about it all is that it's not just two people ruling it. It is an actual, yeah, everyone's got, yeah, everyone's got interest. Music.

Welcome to the profitable farmer podcast where we share stories and tips to help you run a better farming business and create your very own freedom farm if you're looking to work smarter and not harder in your farm business, welcome. You're in the right place. G'day everyone. Welcome again to Profitable Farmer. I hope you're well and navigating this start to this new season.

One of the greatest things I get to do on this podcast is to share some of the success that we get to see as a business, our members achieving. And there's no greater example really than this story. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Rob and Ainsley MacArthur from MacArthur Holdings, 15 kilometers west of St. Lawrence in central Queensland. Now that's halfway between Rockhampton and Mackay, close to the coast.

The MacArthur family, I think Rob and Ainsley are fourth generation on this farm and their children coming through will be fifth. And they're just such a great example for mine of what's possible when families come together and focus in on a common plan and really get clear on how to move their business forward in real alignment. So very excited to share their story.

And I've also asked their business coach, part of FOA, Sam Pincott, to join us just to be part of the conversation and to share what he's observed Robin Ainsley and their family achieve over their last few years with us at Farm Owners Academy. Sam, great to have you with us. How are you? Thanks, Hatch. Great to be here. Really excited to be part of this conversation. Thanks, Sam and Rob and Ainsley. Thanks so much for joining us today, being part of Profitable Farmer.

And yeah, again, well done on your story and great to have you with us. How are you? We're excellent. Thanks, Hatch. Yep, feeling really good. Thanks, Hatch. Perfect. So just to kick us off, would you mind just giving us a bit of a history to MacArthur Holdings. Ainsley, I might throw to you, do you mind just talking about the backstory prior generations and perhaps when you and Rob arrived to the business?

So I've, like Rob, have grown up in a beef cattle business, obviously generational. It met Rob, we were set up at a wedding about 25, not very good at counting those years, but yeah, 25 years ago. And so I've held, and I guess generationally and through both of us, we've both come from families that have encouraged the next generation to be involved. And I think they've set a really good example and almost like a legacy before us of how to bring the next generation into the business.

And so it was almost a natural progression when Rob and I met and. Started Macarpa Holdings in its own entity that we began to, it was just a natural progression to actually invest in ourselves to learn how to involve, knowing that we wanted to involve the kids and the next generation, but also knowing that we needed to build skills and needed to work on ourself and learn better how to communicate and be, yeah, an example to the next generation.

Thanks, Ainsley. So perhaps just to explore that a little further, what was your experience of succession from the previous generation to you? You say that that was positive for you. Perhaps it'd be great to hear your story around that, Ainsley. And then Rob, same for you. We often hear the war stories, don't we, around succession, but what was your experience, Ainsley, last time?

Well, interestingly, I've actually only always been part of my family's business and always had a role to play and not necessarily operationally, but knowing that the legacy of that business would land in my lap and that I would be custodian of that for the future. So I think that conversation already busts some of the succession piece around that the farm will pass on to...

Me and I will do what I need to do with that farm it actually my parents have actually only both passed away in recent years and and now with my siblings we are actually managing a legacy business but we've built structure and and operational context around that so that it it's actually continuing just like I would be a stakeholder in in and a business and And separating that business out from a piece of land and it actually having to be in,

hard to explain, but it's that I am custodian of that business and building it for the, growing it for the future. And also that example actually led me to be able to see that I could actually, one of those members of that family could exit and that you could facilitate an exit for them while carrying on the legacy that so many farming businesses are. And I feel like that has been a great example for Rob and I and his succession has happened differently, but almost similarly.

There was no, we've definitely, neither of us have been raised with a sense of entitlement or, which I think in this day and age, it's almost easy to cookie cutter succession, but I think there's a million ways to do it. Rob and I are examples of that, but it's only successful if you have healthy family relationships and really good communication.

Thanks, Ainsley. Rob, what's your connection? What's your history and how was succession? How did that play out in your last generation? Yeah, it's sort of, we become in charge of our operation relatively early in life through circumstances that weren't ideal. My mum passed away when I was only 20 and I took over her part of the partnership with her and dad. And then dad and I run it as a partnership till 2003 when he passed away with obviously the learning and the mentorship from dad.

But, yeah, we were able to just pick up the reins and we kept it going. And then Ainsie and I got married only a couple of years before that. So Ainsie was sort of coming into the business then as well. So we basically, it didn't really miss a beat when Dad passed on and we were able to, yeah, just continue the trend.

And we actually expanded relatively, yeah, soon after that we started growing it because, yeah, we could see that scale was, you know, If you want to have children, then the scale that we had was not going to service a growing family. So yeah, we looked at that opportunity and things popped up. Thanks, Rob. Rob, how do you describe the business today? Would you mind giving our listeners just an overview of MacArthur Holdings as it is today? Yeah.

Through Farm Owners Academy, we've done a lot of work on the structure of how we've set it up. But Ainsley, she holds the CEO role in the business and I'm outside on the production side as he has all the bright ideas and I make sure they happen. But in saying that, We have an annual planning weekend once a year where we get all the stakeholders. The stakeholders are Anas and I and our six kids and their extended family.

The family's starting to grow. So we have that once a year. We go away for a couple of days, two or three days, and work through that. And then every quarter, we have a quarterly meeting. So just make sure that all the stakeholders are involved in that as well. And then, yeah, they might, Ainsley and myself and Andrew, our eldest boy, who's working in the business too now, make sure that we're accountable for what we're doing. Thanks, Rob.

And Ainsley, would you mind just describing the farm for us or the property? Yeah. So we have 30,000 acres. I can never remember how many hectares that is. Half a generation, the wrong side of that. And we run about between 5,000 and 6,000 head of cattle here and on another block that we've got some adjustment on. We're predominantly a breeding business and then we're backgrounding steers with the target of feedlot entry weight as our turnoff.

Thanks, Ainsley. And what are some of the key achievements that you both reflect on having achieved in your career over the last 25 years?

What are a couple of the milestone growth steps or the milestone moments of real improvement that you're most proud of first and foremost you've got to say the kids but personally well in the business I think it is the and I hesitate to use the word regenerative but because it's such a coined phrase but I think it's our grazing management that and what we've been able to achieve here by investing in in ourselves and learning how to do things better so just being open-minded and what.

We've been able to get out of our country. We're really proud of the development we've done here, our increase in our carrying capacity. Yeah, I feel like there's no really huge milestones. It's just that it continues to feel better and better. And we just know that we're really building this business and this landscape into something that the next generation can go forth with.

Thanks, Ainsley. Rob, how much more productive is your property than 25 years ago? We used to, and we're working on, okay, I'll take heed your thing about acronyms. We used to run about 1,500 livestock units on our holdings with a change in grazing management and fencing the country up to smaller areas. We have now increased that to 5,300 livestock units over the last 20 years. We don't fertilise. We have done a fair bit of pasture, adding tropical pastures into it and stylise.

So, yeah, we've considerably lifted our carrying capacity by grazing and a little bit of wire. Thanks, Rob. Rob, I know you've completed the RCS course and I think you've done KLR marketing and my observation is that you're both just so open to investing in your own skill set and growing as individuals. So congratulations on that. How valuable have those programs been for you as to support that journey? Incredible. And I think we wouldn't have been, well, we've implemented and I

think that's been the key. we wouldn't, having the confidence, hearing about the fairy would, And then actually watching and seeing other people do that. And so, you know, taking on board other people's learnings. I remember when we first came home from our first RCS course and we jammed all the cows in one paddock and started to rotate them. And there was a couple of hundred Brahmin cows that lived in four different paddocks.

So each cow had lived in that paddock all her life. And we got these Brahmin cows. And I guess anyone in the north of Australia will know how a Brahman cow loves her home. And they all stood in that. We bought them all in one paddock and they all went and stood in the corner that they came from. So north, south, east and west corner from wherever they came from. And we just went, oh God, what are we doing? And this isn't going to work.

But like, it is about being brave to try something different. And it's the same. Rob had a complete paradigm about electric fence and he was a four barbed wire, iron bark post man. But like anything, we had a go and we didn't get it right the first time, but we had a go. And I think that's a reflecting, if we reflect, that's what we've been together, been able to do is go, yeah, have a go, doesn't work, learn a new idea.

Have a go, try it, learn and don't give up. And I think the big thing is that the kids have been involved in the whole process. Like Andrew was, I think Andrew was six weeks old when we did our first executive link meeting with RCS. So yeah, the kids have been involved in it the whole way through. So they've been exposed to those learnings and exposure of thinking that, yeah, try things and give it a go. Thank you.

We came to know you about five years ago, I think, when you started with us and Farm Owners Academy, what was it that inspired you to make the decision to lean in and call on FOA's support? It was about building a bigger network for us. So, and one of the things for us being in what I call Northern Australia is let's go and see how they do it in the South. And I think that was a little bit of, so a new group of people, we, I think we talked to Westy.

And so knowing that the culture of the group and of the organization like we were going to be surrounding ourselves with like-minded people people who were willing to have a go that positivity and we were well we've done some wonderful things with RCS we were ready for the next group and the next yeah growth opportunity yeah I think that in a nutshell is yeah why we've yeah why we're here and at that point we'd sort of hadn't done anything for a little while and we were going well well,

come on, we need to keep exposing ourselves to, yeah, different learnings.

So I think it was Facebook and then a post come up and I went, yeah, what, and did a little bit of research and thought, well, yeah, I think. What you guys offer is what we need. So, yeah, so we took the steps and made contact. Thanks, Rob. So, Sam, you first came to know Rob and Ainsley when you started coaching them probably five years ago.

What's your reflection of those first few meetings that you had with them, getting their alignment meeting done and getting them support on their first strategic plan and meeting them for the first time? Yeah, absolutely, Hutch. A lot of it's been, we've touched on already the thing that was very evident very soon when I had the privilege of starting to work with Robin Ainsley was the family unit. There were many calls where there were family members.

Part of those calls where there had been a mastermind call attending one of our deep dive conferences. I'm trying to now work back the years, but Eliza was probably about eight, maybe seven or eight. Would that be about right, Ainsley? Yeah. But just the commitment and the vision that both Rob and Ainsley were demonstrating then and have continued to for their family business and where everybody fits in that has been extraordinary to watch.

Thanks, Sam. And we've done other podcasts previously on succession with Mike Stevens and Isabel Knight and Tony Catt, who are specialists in that field. But to your point, Sam, I think Rob and Ainsley just present such an incredible example of how to lead a young family and give them that exposure to the running of a successful farm business. Would you mind just speaking, Sam, from your perspective on practically what you've seen?

Have you seen Rob and Ainsley include their six children in the business improvement journey over the last five years? Yeah, so look, I think it's important to note and it's fair to say that when I first started working with Rob and Ainsley, the business model was being tested to a degree. There was a large, due to previous circumstances, there was a large reliance on adjustment, but there was a very clear vision to get back to a breeding and more trading enterprise. But everybody was invested.

The kids were giving their input. As Rob said, like the family, all involved in the annual planning, the quarterly planning.

But there's been a very strong aligned vision the whole way through. And that, I think, has really helped drive. And now that there's a couple more of the kids that have finished school and heading off in their own career paths. And they may not all be directly related to the farming enterprise right now, but they've still got significant input to that vision and achieving that vision.

And the business is now setting itself up to continue to provide opportunity for those different family members, no matter which direction they choose to take.

And that has been on the back of Rob and Ainsley's leadership. Great comment, Sam. I think now's the perfect time. Monsely, would you mind introducing your broader family, your six children, just giving us a brief overview of... Perhaps their age and what they're up to. And then I'd love to explore what has been your approach to getting them involved early. But would you mind just introducing us to your family?

Yeah, very proudly. So Tess is the eldest and she's now married, lives about an hour and a half north of us. And she has delivered us our first grandbaby, which is the most exciting thing ever. And little Isabel was involved in our, he's just about to turn 22. He's been, of our children, and he's been the most involved in the farm owners process, but because of the age and the stage he was at, and he's actually working in the business with us right now.

Buck is 19, and he, since he's been two, is going to be a livestock agent, and that is exactly what he's doing now and is a perfect example of when you know what you want to do and you have a passion, you'll excel. So that's where he is. And then Hamish, Adelaide and Eliza are all in at boarding school at the moment. So they're all in high school now. Hamish is about to finish grade 12, Adelaide's in grade 11 and Eliza's in grade 8.

But to build on that, we've got a strategic move on our plate at the moment. Well, we do a monthly dashboard to keep the kids all up to date and we're quite open. And the business is very much an open book and the kids all sit around, are very aware of the finances. When we present the financial papers at the quarterly meetings, we'll age appropriately. There's nothing like being questioned about the cost of telephone and internet from a 12-year-old.

Age appropriately, they really contribute and bring ideas to the table.

But there was a strategic move that I was discussing with Tess and she said, I think the stakeholders actually need to this is a stakeholder issue this is not just an operational strategic thing that should be occurring and so we called a meeting yesterday and isabel front of center was at the meeting so that at 10 months old she's now contributing as well but i just love that we have now got a construct where rob and andrew and i is working operationally in the business,

but we have a board that ostensibly are our children that are holding us account to where this business is going. And yeah, it's just that to me is the combination of all the practice runs we've been doing ever since the kids have been little. Thanks, Ainsley. And a shout out to Tess, who I understand sort of moving through her Nuffield scholarship at the moment. It's a huge achievement in addition to her career and now a young mum.

What has been your philosophy? You've brought your kids into the business planning, those quarterly meetings you mentioned. They have full exposure to all the financials and now you effectively have them on a board. You have them on a board. And they hold you accountable to doing the best you can do by the farm. What's been your philosophy to bring your children into those meetings and those conversations so early?

I think going right back to the beginning of the conversation, I've had the privilege of being involved in those conversations, not formally, but my parents exposed me that right the way through. And then I think it has been about educating ourselves and seeing the examples of how a business might operate. And if I reflect, you know, I've done company directors training with AICD.

Have done a lot of work with the likes of Alan Parker about the business of family and the family of business, for the family business and the business of family and how they're two different things. So it has been about gaining a lot of knowledge and then going, well, we have been shown, there's theories out here about best practice, now let's implement it.

And I think not being afraid to implement it because their kids do have such an age spread on them to actually implement it and have that expectation of the kids that to be part of a family, whether you're a part of a cricket team or a family or a school community, you have a responsibility to show up. And the kids are really, it really astounds me. The more meetings we have, the more involved and they speak up. And sometimes, as Rob said, sometimes Adelaide and Eliza being the youngest

will tune out, but that's okay too. That's age appropriate. Yeah. So it's actually not having any rules, but having an expectation and a sense of reward because it does come back to that they feel involved and have that sense of responsibility. And I was just going to say it.

Provides them with a sense of ownership like they're actually contributing to the actual the direction that we're going it's not just mum and dad that are driving this whole thing it's a group and older that they're getting you know we can convince ourselves that oh that's a good idea but then they are looking at it from a different perspective and yeah they ask pointy questions And you go, right, okay, stand back.

And that's the healthy thing about it all is that it's not just two people ruling it. It is an actual, yeah, everyone's got, yeah, everyone's an interest.

Rob, what impact has it had on the business, do you think, having all of them involved from an early stage? What's your take on how it's helped the business? It's, as Sam said, when we first started Farm Owners, Our business model was totally different to what it is now. We had a lot of adjustment. The kids were involved in operational stuff, but you could just see that the passion wasn't there.

We were going out. We were still doing our rotations and shifting cattle, which we do with their own, but they weren't our cattle and the kids, they begrudgingly. And then as we started building our numbers and, yeah, the kids were, you don't have to come, I'll go and do that. So they just, yeah, it comes back that they took ownership because, yeah, they're doing something. Ainsley, what impact do you feel having your children so involved early has had back on their development as young people?

I guess I'm biased because I'm their mum, but their maturity and their ability, there's so many pieces. I feel like their emotional intelligence is quite high. And I mean, they're kids and they're going to make mistakes and they know that and we know that, but they have that sense of how the world works.

I see them, Hamish, he's in year 12, and if he presents me with a business plan on a piece of machinery, like a dozer, for example, or I mentioned to him the other day in my extended family's business that freight was a real issue. Well, yesterday, he's still working out what he wants to do when he finishes year 12, but yesterday he came back with me and he said, now, this is what it would cost for a truck. This is what it would cost for trailers. and he had done amazing research, swatted it.

He said, now, these are the disadvantages and advantages of employing a driver. I feel like all of them in their own right, and Hamish is just an example, thinking about business ideas, but far greater than selling the lemonade at the pop-up store. The other thing that we always say to them is that our six kids are really different and particularly, I'll use Lachlan as an example. Maybe he'll listen to this. People often say to us, where did you get that child

from? Because he's extroverted and he's confident and he's the consummate. He's just in the right job as a livestock agent. He's a people's person. He is a people's person. We have fostered that environment for them to know that they have, each of them are very different, that they have strengths and weaknesses and that you need all those players in the team. You need someone with so many different, Lachlan, for example,

could literally sell Snow to an Eskimo. So the other kids actually know that when you need something that Lachlan's the man that you put forward. And equally, they know that if you need something done, Hamish is the completed finisher. So that's the person you put up there. And to me, and if we think about the war stories, you think about, you know. Three brothers or six siblings in a business, it's about, and we often talk to them about the difference between what's fair and what's equal,

because by nature, they're all so different. and they're all going to end up in very different places. The business is going to be a vehicle for them to support them to get them where they want. But they've actually got to work together and work to each other's strengths. I think it's much easier to learn that when you're in your early 20s or a teenager versus being 40 or 50 or 60.

I was just going to say, I'm kind of jealous that the exposure that these kids have had, how far we could have been progressed if we had that exposure back at their age. The kids have been exposed to these amazing learnings over their teenage and even younger years that, you know, Rob and Ainsley, now they're seeing the fruits of that labour coming into play.

Like, they don't all have to be interested in the actual farming business that Rob and Ainsley are running, but they've got the learnings and the understanding of what they need to go and research and what their vision is because they've been actively involved in setting the family business's vision to go and create their own place of their environment. It's really powerful. Sam, I'd like you to expand on that. What impact have you seen it have on the business and on Rob and Ainsley's children?

I think the biggest thing is just the clarity of the vision of that business and how that's evolved from where things were five years ago with that slightly different business model, but having that constant engagement of the kids as part of that process of what they were doing, why they were doing, what needed to be done at the time, but to get clear on what everybody as stakeholders in that family were wanting to get Andrew as a 18, 19 year old ringing me,

asking me about what personal development books I could recommend to him, through to Eliza at a deep dive for the age eight or nine, diligently filling out the notebook, how much she was actually comprehending or taking in doesn't really matter. There would have been parts of that that she'll never forget. It would have been absorbed in some capacity that she'll refer back to us. For them to then contribute, and the MacArthur's are contributors, it's in their genes.

For them to then contribute back at a board level to the business, it's no surprise that the business model has turned around and is achieving the vision that they've all become very aligned to. Thanks, Sam. So Ainsley, as CEO, and if we reflect on the MacArthur Holdings vision or BHAG, as we call it, a hairy audacious goal, and then the core values that underpin your business. Would you mind just, how did they come to be and how were your children involved in the crafting of that?

It's really interesting because I have 25 years of business planning nights and each year, and I guess the annual planning has really hit, really got traction probably in the last we've always done some some form of annual planning but i think in the last five six years we have really we're nailing that i'll print out when we go to the beach you know we go and play golf we take the kids to an island or you know do all the fun things but they the kids sit down with a notebook and so we

always really big on their personal goals and obviously age appropriate it might be a new bike or a new horse and it might be an amount of cattle it might be you know a property it's always age appropriate where their goals are and then we then talk about the business vision i guess by osmosis they have for rob and i it is definitely about more land and more cattle and and building a bigger but at each and your planning we go

with almost a clean slate just to check in with that beehive and over the period of time that beehive has that vision has not changed and the kids raffle that off and each and every one of them almost challenges it.

To be bigger like they are so invested in in the business in growing it in in growing the business yeah but also sitting us alongside that is their personal vision which it's like that they're responsible for their own balance sheet as well and which i think is a really nice piece because if there was one thing i'd say about the kids they certainly don't come across as entitled like it's not like they're growing this to be for themselves they're growing it for something

bigger them themselves and I mean like any family in business it's going to change and we're going to grow and you know it will evolve but we have the framework and the system and the communication construct for them for us to work through all of that and that I feel like the last 10 years all of that work is actually preparing us for the next 10 it's just it is super exciting right now because using the example from yesterday, we called in a meeting and they asked us some pointy questions.

And I just think that's exactly what you want. And I mean, Rob and I are in our early 50s and we want to be asked the pointy questions. What would you say to a family listening that hasn't yet necessarily brought their young children into some of those conversations? What would you say to them and what tips would you have for them on how to do it well? Rob, could I start with you? Yeah, the earlier you start them, it just becomes natural.

It's like, you know, they just pick up and it just becomes nature. Like, it's just what happens. And yeah, you can never start too early. The earlier you start, the easier it becomes because the kids, you know, they know exactly what direction you're heading and they're not being blindsided by this or by that. And feeling that they're heard when they put something up and feeling that they're heard and what they've said is actually taken notice of is another.

It's just that clarity that everyone knows where everyone's at and not judging is the other thing. Like someone might ask a question, yeah.

Don't think it's a stupid question. Just let that go through. Do not comment on it just because they've got a reason for asking that question about whatever it might be about and there will be an outcome out of it. Yeah, just to add on to what Rob just said there, I think that above and below the line behavior, so we don't tolerate the below the line behavior. Yeah. In some instances, there has been some child has been the village idiot and climbed under the table or something like that.

But we haven't focused on that. We've actually just kept going. And quite quickly, they want to be part of it because everyone else is part of it and everyone else is involved. And it's that classic thing. If you focus on the child not participating. Then guess what's going to happen? It's not going to participate. You just got to keep focusing on what you want. The kids have been exposed to every template that we have ever laid our hands on through the farm owners community, through the RCS.

We print those templates out and they've filled in their golden life booklets. They've all just keep throwing those tools at them because it's so different to anything they're learning at school. And I mean, it's probably changing in this digital age, but you know, back when we went to workshops and we We had a big paper, butcher's paper. We bought the butcher's paper and the coloured pens and let them scribble out the ideas.

And it doesn't matter if it's a silly idea. It's actually the gold is actually in the process. And if you have a process, then the answers will rise to the top. Thank you both.

I love the comment that a business will never outgrow its owner. Just to acknowledge you both for just that lifelong dedication to your own development and improvement and then your willingness to pass it on early to your children I think is such a gift.

And I just also want to acknowledge the level of respect and the level of patience that you must extend them in those conversations just to allow them to ask every question that they have and to feel heard and respected and not judged, Rob, to your point. I think it's just to be acknowledged for just the patience within your leadership in how you've supported them to turn up to those conversations.

Well done. Just to add, I distinctly remember at the annual planning last year, I think we had golf book for the afternoon and we were sort of, you know, we'd done 10-year goals. We'd done, you know, three years.

Goals with one-year actions and quarterly and we're all you know waning it was a bit that you know time of day we're going god I wish this and I just then let's take a break and let's do this later and Hamish probably only 14 or something at the time and he said no let's keep going we're not playing golf until we finish this work and I just love that it doesn't actually have to be one person, but if there's a group of you, like in any instance and any activity,

if there's a group of you, you keep each other going. Yeah. Sam, how unique is this in your experience? Yeah, quite unique. Hutch, really. I just keep going over the fact that they've got a framework. They use a framework that allows a platform for professional conversation in a family environment. Certainly, ANC has referred to it a lot, the age of preparedness of the goals or the comments. So that's being factored in.

But at the end of the day, one of the stakeholders might have a goal of a new horse or something that might seem a little bit more trivial. They're still actually sticking to the structure to make a proper plan for a growing business. So it's that structure I think is really important. Thanks, Sam. And the beauty is the kids are into camp drafting. It's a family. Andrew's got his truck license now. him and his siblings jump in the truck and go to a draft that's, yeah, their mates as well as,

yeah, as well as being siblings. Yeah. They're friends. But also they have, from the business, they've worked out a system almost like a delegation about who is organising each part of that. And the camp draft is a great example. Just as we have a weekly meeting and we work out what's happening operationally at Mystery Park and what cattle are going to be moved or who's mustering what. They actually have a system and a delegation process of how that works.

And I've actually been cut out of that chat, not necessarily because they actually don't need me in that process, so they know...

When who to include in a conversation and I just think how cool is that in a business you don't actually need the CEO in every conversation but you have a reporting mechanism that it does rise to the CEO when you actually need to take time out of the business so I just just feel like all of these skills are so transferable across every facet of their life and whether they're working in the MacArthur holding business

or they're an employee of another business or they're creating creating their own. Thanks, Ainsley.

Ainsley, you've mentioned family business versus the business of family. Would you mind speaking to that? What's your take on the distinction? I will refer back to my family, my extended family for this, because my father passed away last year. And so together with my siblings, we're in a family business.

But when we're sitting beside dad's bed and caring for him, and we did have to care for him for quite a time, That's the business of family that we can actually gather around and, I mean, be there for dad when he needed us the most. And likewise, I think we can talk about gathering around the Christmas table or taking the family holiday.

Those are the things that no matter what's happening in our family business, we want to be able to have those conversations and enjoy each other as a family, not just partners or members of a business. And I think that's really, it really became clear last year that I don't want to be out with my siblings. I want to be in business together with them. But I also think that the, yeah, the most important thing is the business of family. Thank you.

Perfect. How has... Farm Owners Academy supported you and your family in this? As you reflect over your last five years with us, the strategic planning process, the communication rhythm that we recommend, even the benchmarking and other elements. And you mentioned the community as well, Aimsley, that you were looking for when you started. How do you reflect on how the Farm Owners Academy project has supported you and your family to get all this in play?

I think, Sam, you mentioned it before, it's actually the framework and even, and I always get this upside down and back to front hutch, but the triangle that we work through, the tune in and take control piece, it's a framework and it's a process. And if you, I mean, there's bits like all learning, it's like you can read a book and then you can read it again and learn something more from it.

But it's just that constant reinforcement of understanding yourself first, then actually measuring and knowing exactly where you are, and then actually also setting up that BHAG or having that direction. Farm owners, the tools and the support through our coaches, like we were so fortunate to have Sam in that part of our three-year journey. Then, you know, I think to each of the deep dives, bringing community together, seeing other people implement.

Knowing that you don't actually have to implement it all at one time and that the piece that you need to implement will actually rise to the top for you at that time, all of that. And then for the numbers nerd, which is a little bit me, is doing the benchmark. And after I got off the phone call from Greg Debrief many years ago, I said, well, that paid for itself just in a two-hour phone call with Greg after we'd done our benchmark.

So just, you know, that measuring, yeah, the friendships we've made. And then, as I've famously said, going on to the alumni program and then to be able to be in a room. And have other businesses really hone in on what was our biggest constraint at that time.

It was like now we're playing the real game, we're on the field and then to then more recently be part of the boardroom program where there's, you know, really, I'm not sure, 18 or so really dedicated businesses that have been through the whole process to be so well supported in that.

All the time, we're using all the tools that we've learned at the beginning of the farm owner's journey that, in all honesty, we had seen before in the RCS process, a little bit different, but kind of those theories aren't actually that different, you know, from the authors and the places before. But just hearing that when you need to hear it, you can't actually, it's impossible to take it all in in the first day, year, 10 years.

You've just actually got to keep exposing yourself to it and it all just starts to yeah the cog start to turn slowly and yeah actually learn off other people other people might ask the question or they might have a problem and then you can associate what you need to get out of what they've.

Come up with you go right we can use that and we can that will that's exactly what we need to do so it's that's a community it's that many minds way stronger than than one and you know a team and we class the farm owners academy groups that we're involved in as part of our team like yeah just yeah inspirational thanks rob it's the concept of a mastermind isn't it that so many of us in agriculture, we're on our farms going alone.

You know, we might have one or two advisors. We are just trying to navigate this business improvement journey as a family on our own. I think you speak to it really nicely that there's strength in being surrounded by a group of like-minded peers who are challenging you and challenging themselves. And we're all learning for the benefit.

Yeah, great comments. Thank you. Sometimes when we do our mastermind, you'd have your question that you want answered and you would think, oh, well, I'm not going to get a lot out of our meeting today. And then after the meeting, you go, it was definitely worth. Yeah, same as I said, that's worth every cent that we put towards it by what we just got out of that. Yeah, so never think that you're not going to get something out of every interaction you have.

Just well done for the way in which you've lent him to Platinum Mastermind and then alumni and now boardroom. As members of our community, you're just such valued contributors, but you're just such great examples of what you can do when you're open to the learning and you're willing to be held accountable and you focus in on the pursuit of a worthwhile goal as individuals and as a family. You're just such great examples of people who execute really strongly.

Sam, what's your comment on the MacArthur family and what they've achieved over their five years of tracking with us? Hutch, it really is a very inspirational story to see the next generation coming through but just how Rob and Ainsley have led that and as I said to earlier on and it's just touched on there again that.

They're such contributors and quite often I've seen in our mastermind conversations, Rob and Ainsley will be contributing to somebody else's question or constraint at a time, but end up getting so much value for their own business out of what they've just contributed to somebody else's. The penny drops about what they need to address themselves. So, such value in contribution and these guys do it so well.

But I'm just super excited, Hutch, to see where the MacArthur next generation, where they head because there are some, at this stage, there's some different avenues as opposed to the beef operation, but the learnings that they've had and the conversations that we've already heard that they're having, it's pretty exciting for this family. Thanks, Sam. Great comment. Givers gain, right? The more you lean in and give to others, the more we get back.

And again, that's one of the other great things about being part of a mastermind. Thank you.

So Rob and then Ainsley, how does the future look? And maybe with the next generation in mind and for the investment you've made in your children and their development, how do you see succession playing out? How confident are you in that? And how does the future look for your family? We've been discussing this for quite a number of years. And Ainsley alluded it there before, like the sense of entitlement and being fair and equal.

I think they're all aware that, But yeah, you know, it mightn't be dollars wise, mightn't be all the same. However, it will be totally fair into whatever avenue they're headed. We, part of our BHAG, is we still want to grow. So Ainsley and I have still got something that we want to achieve ourselves yet, but we want to have MacArthur Holdings in a position that each stakeholder can, And we can support each stakeholder in whatever direction they want to go off.

And MacArthur Holdings will be the main ship. And then they'll have their satellites going off that. That's how I see how we're headed. I love that, Rob. And I love the fact that you've referred to the stakeholders that happen to just be your children. Yeah. From a business standpoint, we've all got significant businesses that are set up with the ability to contribute to so many. And as you say, having that as kind of the engine room or the mothership that can allow.

You know, our children to go off and pursue whatever it is that they want with good business skill is such a great way to think about it. Ainsley, what about for you? How does the future look? And it's such a good question because, Robin, this is part of Rob and I's project at the moment is what personally does our future look like?

And I mean, we sort of break it into decades. We've had a fairly long apprenticeship and we've been learning and then we've been doing and now we've got 10 years of, well, hopefully we'll be our wives with a great board behind us to drive us so we're fit and healthy. And I know that farm owners talk a lot about the freedom, a freedom business, and I feel like we're on the cusp of having that freedom.

Well, I almost feel like we do have to a great degree have that freedom and there's always work to do around that.

But I think the lesson for us at the moment is that you don't actually have to know where we're going to be living when we're 75 and although the kids often have a joke about that so do you like this house at the beach mom but I think that's part of the whole process is asking the question and it doesn't matter if you don't actually have the finite answer but it's the fact that you're open to asking the question to putting it on the agenda and and

then the answer will evolve but if you've got your head buried in the sand and that you're not Rob's lived in this house his whole life that we're not actually moving out and moving on that would be dangerous the fact that we don't exactly know where we are is that kind of exciting but I think overarching and it kind of comes back to those values that the business has our future just aligns so you You know, it's John Lee too, that teamwork makes the dream work, the can-do attitude.

The quality piece and the growth. And when we put growth into our values, it's not about necessarily, it can be in scale, but it's so much more. It's about the growth of us as human beings, about, you know, our mindsets and being better people.

And I think those values really are a little bit, help us to get to that North Star and And what it physically looks like, we're actually not quite sure yet, but we know we're on the pathway and we know we've got the kids, like, you know, we've got those family, the business of family kind of sorted out.

And I mean, there's always going to be challenges to that, but yeah, we're up for it. Perfect. What a great comment. Rob, you've talked about, or you've both talked about how your children are stakeholders and on the board, but practically I understand they're. Have always been and they are very actively involved in the day-to-day running of the business. Would you mind speaking to how it works practically?

Yeah, they basically, people probably call it a bit slave-labeled, but when they're at home, when they're home from boarding school or on weekends, they are an integral part of our workforce and they'll jump in and do whatever that needs doing.

And they've all got their points of genius so yeah we just channeled them into where they're where they're the best suited in the business and i think that work ethic that has come out of all of that is just i think that's also an integral part of them being part of a stakeholder too like they're putting the hours in outside in the paddy so that now that they get to have a say in the business just actually, yeah, it just sort of complements the whole thing.

I know my father, one of the things I reflect on that I'm most grateful for is that he treated us like young adults well before we'd probably earned the right to. You know, driving headers age 11 and tractors and chaser bins age 9 and, you know, being out actually doing really important work. How important is it to teach our kids that work ethic piece at a young age, Rob, in your opinion?

I think it's crucial because they come home from school and say that their friends, you know, they sit around all holidays and they get bored and they haven't got anything to do. And whereas ours, yeah, they just come home and they just get our planner out and they look at it and they go, righto, well, I can do this and I can do that.

And then the other one's yep now I can do those jobs that need doing and yeah and look at the brick list and work out what they can take off that and get it done so no I think it's there it's it's just you don't want to drive them into the ground but they just love getting them doing it and Pincott can I just throw to you for a final comment mate you've known and got to know this incredible family and all six kids really intimately over the last five

years what's your reflection as we sort of round out this conversation. I think it's just a great example of true leadership in a family environment. Leadership from the top with Robin Ainsley. And as I said, I'm really excited to see where the future heads, especially for that younger generation, having been exposed to what they have been so far.

Great comment, Sam. And just reflecting back on our respective families and your girls, what have you learned from Robin Ainsley that you take a way to sort of take back into how you lead your family. Just that openness and that piece around involvement.

Bring them in. They're never too young. We need to do more of that, but just that exposure is absolutely gold. Thanks, Sam. Great comments. One last question for each of you, if I could, what are you most proud of for the journey? You talked about the last five or seven years as you built this out, perhaps with our support, but 25 years of marriage and now fourth generation family, passing on an incredible legacy to the next generation.

Rob, what are you most proud of? Just obviously the way that we've come together as a family. As I said before, the kids go camped after. They go all together because they're mates. And that's the thing that I'm most proud of, that, yeah, everyone is together because they want to be together, not because they're bound together. And I think that's, and just watching them grow and mature and become their own individual person, but also be part of a bigger team.

Amazing, Rob. Thank you. Ainsley, what about you? I'm, Rob nailed it, but I'm most proud of that we have been able to, I'm so grateful for our ancestors, the people before us, like, and both of us have lost both our parents now.

So we are the next generation. So I'm most proud that we are carrying on legacies from the generations before us and that we're growing the next generation and they not only can see what's come before them, but also that they're, and I'll use our focus on health and fitness as an example. I see those examples shining through in our kids now and I just, that somehow we have been able to pass on some of the good things that we have had and the kids are picking that up.

There has been never any stipulation that you must. It's more that they can. It's that in you. It's that in you and it's that in all of them. They want to. And that, to me, is what I'm most proud of.

Yeah, we haven't talked about the half marathons and the full marathons and the 100-kilometre walking challenges that you both constantly set your minds to, but there's no doubt that you just, the leadership role and the way in which you are inspiring your next generation through your actions are just, that's inspiring for us to see.

So, well done on that. But hey to you both, thank you so much for your time and for your openness and for sharing the MacArthur family story. It's been great to connect. Really appreciate both your time. No worries. It's been a pleasure. It's been really nice. It's been a really nice reflection. Thanks. It's good to actually be asked to be interviewed on probably my favourite podcast. I'll pay you later, Rob.

Hey, just know that this is going to be significantly inspiring for so many other farming families across Australia and beyond.

Thanks to the three of you. Really appreciate your time and take care. Bye for now. And there you have it, folks. I think so often we come across families that they're not on the same page. There isn't a common plan or a vision that they're collectively shooting for. Plans are in people's heads and certainly often the older generation or hasn't involved the younger generation proactively, completely and early enough. For me, Rob and Ainsley and the MacArthur family are the other extreme of that.

They've had their children in their planning meetings. Their benchmarking meetings, their financial meetings, and all of the business learning meetings that they've exposed themselves to for, I mean, Tess is 33, for 30 plus years. And it's such a great example of the benefit of doing that, that they've got a clear vision that their whole family is aligned to. Their children have been involved in setting down the core values and the standards that underpin how their family business operates.

They've got a really clear roadmap and documented strategic plan that everyone feels like they've contributed to. And when the kids come home from boarding school, they look at the plan and get on with helping the family drive towards the business goals without even being asked.

And Rob mentioned work ethic, the business skills, the confidence that each of their children have without entitlement to actually back themselves, to go after their own business journey and to help the MacArthur family create a legacy for future generations.

It's all there. And so I think, I'm just so pleased to share this story and hopefully for some of you, it's encouragement to look at how we are communicating with our children and the degree to which we're bringing them into important conversations. But absolutely, Rob and Ainsley are an example of family leadership done well. Just check in on this and determine if now's a great time to bring the younger generation into important business conversations proactively and early.

Rob and Ainsley, I hope this interview has done your story justice. You are such a great example of people who learn proactively. Contribute significantly, and you're just such a great example of actually applying the theories and the principles and the frameworks that we teach and the incredible outcome that can happen when you implement really strongly around what we learn. Thank you so much. I hope that's been helpful to all of you listening.

Thank you, Sam, for being part of that interview. And thanks, Sam, for the support you've extended to Rob and Ainsley and their incredible children over the last five plus years. Take care, everyone. Bye for now. Music. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Profitable Farmer podcast by Farm Owners Academy.

If you're new to this show be sure to follow us if you've been a long time listener let your friends know about us or come continue the conversation in the profitable farmer facebook group all the best as you grow your business and create your freedom farm until next time keep being incredible.