How does a family define fairness? Is it helping everyone be successful or is it helping the farm be successful after the farm transition?

Fairness keeps founders awake at night. Fairness means different things to different farm team members and the non-farming heirs. Elaine tackles the challenges most families face when trying to be FAIR during the farm transition.

The audience will receive the FAIR (Financial transparency, Attitudes, Intentions, Rebels) model:

• Understand the need to unpack financial transparency and the tools to do it (income streams, debt servicing, viability of the farm)
• Navigate attitudes towards money by encouraging families to have clarifying conversations about inheritance expectations
• Share an easy-to-use framework that will enable farm families to create clear intentions about how important decisions are made
• Get insights on what to do with the rebels who are never satisfied as founders shift roles

A farm is not a piece of pie. In today’s agricultural reality, farm families cannot make all of their children economically equal. Equality is no longer part of the transition language.

Elaine’s presentation will give you a new language to manage expectations and navigate finding fairness in farm transition so that everyone will be successful.

As one farmer said “this session gives me the confidence in what I have to go through.”

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Many farmers ask Elaine “How can we get folks to the table to talk?” Often the conflict and high tension around the uncertainty of the future of the farm is keeping people tense and unsure of how to start courageous conversations.

Yet, it’s the conversations that will give breakthroughs – once you deal with the “bull” in the middle of the room.

A Virginia Tech study of 400 farms found that those farm family businesses that communicate were 21% more profitable. Therefore, talking and creating solutions can make you money!

This session goes over the Discuss the Undiscussabulls™ Approach that provides 10 practical steps to start crucial conversations for transition, conflict resolution, or in-law issues:

1. Take charge
2. Come from curiosity
3. Ask deeply
4. Play with possibility
5. Really listen
6. Ponder and perk
7. Cultivate trust
8. Come to terms with death
9. Extend the olive branch
10. Respect boundaries

Conflict is a normal part of farm family business, especially when 2 or 3 generations are trying to figure out a plan that meets their needs. Elaine sees conflict resolution as a “business risk management strategy” and something that anyone can learn to do well.

Elaine’s tools give you the strategies you need to improve communication within your farm family. She’ll help you audit your key challenges. You’ll learn how to deal with resistance and listen to your head, heart, and gut. You’ll gain insight into tough succession issues with tools to use the “phrase that pays” to have life-changing conversations – finally!

It will feel so good to act on common sense tools to talk about issues and resolve conflict. You’ll be able to identify the “Undiscussabulls™” that you need to take care of and start your own pack.

Learning a new language to express your intent and expectations will help you create the certainty for your future that you are longing for.

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Farmers love farming and they never plan to quit. Their spouses, however, have other ideas!

They are both in different stages of the cycle of renewal, but don’t know it. Their adult children want their parents to move to town. What are they going to do? Nothing? That doesn’t feel very good!

Elaine’s insights will help audiences locate their current stage on the cycle of renewal map. She will provide action steps they need to take in order to live the life they’ve always wanted.

This session helps farmers identify the following:

• What they need to let go of
• What they need to hold on to
• What they need to take on and move on
• How to create action steps for aligning with their goals, getting ready for the next chapter of their life, sorting out what’s not working, and taking time to renew themselves
• How to question their many roles in agriculture and choose to live more intentionally with their personal role map

The tools Elaine is using in this talk are based on the research of the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara, where she trained as a certified coach.

This talk is specifically crafted for farmers who are stuck and need to make some life changes as well as women in agriculture who are feeling stressed, overwhelmed and need to let go of what’s not working.

Give your audience the gift of living more intentionally.

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It takes courage to admit that everything behind the front door of your farm is not as beautiful as you would like it to be.  Elaine Froese is gifted at talking about the marriage stresses on farms that fuels the fear of divorce.  She truly believes that love and respect are key to strong marriages, partnerships and relationship capital on your farm.

This session is eye-opening and comforting when you discover your good farm team can really be great with better conflict resolution skills and more role clarity.

This session will help

• Farm dads to understand how to build respect, trust and ask for what they need
• Farm moms to stop being the |Pig in the middle” of the conflict triangle
• Farm successors to stand up for what is right and seek common ground
• Farm son and daughter-in laws to understand family of origin, conflict styles and communication
• Navigate new language and approaches for positive conflict behaviour
• Provide tools for profitable family business meetings while sitting with dep emotions
• Outline the key ways to prevent divorce on farms, for the young folks and the founders.

If you’re wanting to empower your audience and give them something they need – not want – this presentation will be “the talk” of your event.