Conflict avoidance is the biggest barrier to the next generation’s succession success. Elaine Froese provides practical conflict resolution tools to help families have courageous conversations for business continuance, and reduced family tensions.
Founders typically want to know where their income streams will be after they let go of power and control of management and/or ownership. They also have marital conflict about home residence issues, and how to be fair to non-business heirs. The next generation can’t wait to gain equity, and more decision making power. Young farmers are smart, tech-savvy, and want to have their opinions heard by parents and respected. They also need certainty that timelines for transfer and succession agreements will be honoured. Add the conflict dynamics of a new spouse and you have many interesting conversations ahead!
Elaine Froese’s expertise is her practical common sense approach to starting courageous conversations between the generations, and auditing the key challenges. You’ll gain insight into the tools you need to talk about tough succession issues, and then act on them with agreements that work for the different demands of each stage and age of successor or founder. Learn to listen to your head, heart and your “gut”.

Session Solutions:

Acting on common sense tools to talk about issues and resolve fights.
Learning new language to express your intent and expectations.
Meeting regularly with an agenda that morphs into timelines and action!
Embracing conflict resolution as a key business risk management strategy.
Having fun and stronger relationships by being soft on the person, but hard on the problem.
Identifying the «Undiscussabulls™» that you need to take care of, and start your own pack.

Elaine delivers actionable information farm business owners and managers can implement today.She challenges farm family businesses to get «unstuck» and not accept the high anxiety and stress of poor decision making. Her tools are grounded in years of working with farm succession planning and coaching. Her award winning book Planting the Seed of Hope helps build insight and trust quickly with families seeking tools for dealing with conflict and change.

arm Succession Planning Tools for Action
Farming dads need to transfer control and ownership (eventually) to younger farmers. If there is no successor, then what ? If there is a keen successor… congratulations! What do young farmers want? They want certainty of ownership, and a plan with deadlines. They want the farm intact. What do older founding farmers want? To be useful and appreciated. Fairness. They want an income stream for their lifestyle needs.

Session Solutions:

Understanding barriers to farm succession planning
Knowing the age needs that cause conflict
Discover ways to get certainty about everyone’s future and income
Explore building a team of expert advisors
Define timelines for the process. This is not Roundup®!
Know the next steps that you need to take now!
Assess what is fair DNA pay and sweat equity compensation.

Elaine delivers actionable information farm business owners and managers can implement today. People seek out advisors after she hits home with her message.
She challenges farm family businesses to get “unstuck” and not accept the high anxiety and stress of poor decision making. Her tools are grounded in years of working with farm succession planning and coaching. She’s survived two succession plans and can talk about it.
Elaine’s a farmer and speaks to the heart of farm family issues. Her stories make people feel like she’s literally been at their kitchen table for years!

Farmers Don’t Retire… They Re-invent!
You love farming and you never plan to really quit. Your spouse has other ideas. You are both in different stages of the cycle of renewal, but don’t know it. Your adult children want you to move to town. What are you going to do? Nothing? That doesn’t feel very good! How about planning for change, letting go and taking on new plans? Discover how in this revealing presentation.

Session Solution:

Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara’s planning for change map gives insight and direction for moving ahead. Mapping out the cycle of renewal clears up why you are stuck.
Know what you need to let go of, take on, move on, and hold on to.
Appreciate the other person’s perspective of change and renewal.
Acknowledge the steps you need to take to get to the next stage of the planning cycle.
Enjoy freedom to get what you want in your new role.
Forget about retirement, you’re re-inventing yourself on the farm! Really?

Elaine is a certified Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara Coach (www.hudsoninstitute.com). She is highly trained to help people see where they are on the cycle of renewal map in order to plan for change. She’s the farm family coach your clients need to connect with!
She has presented this workshop and keynote across the prairies. The key issue is discovering that your perspective and stage of the cycle can be completely opposite to your spouse and business partners. This makes planning for change a challenge, unless you identify what to let go of, “drop the bananas,” and what to take on.

Balance in a Complex World
Folks are tired and overloaded. They think self care is selfish. Too many roles and too little time. Where did the fun go? Elaine is an active farm partner with off-farm demands, just like you. She’s experienced a serious health issue, which makes her passionate and practical about being intentional, not “busy” and she shares her story and strategies for living a balanced life in this presentation.

Session Solutions:

Learn to identify your 6 core roles and the passions that drive you.
Embrace simple ways to be intentionally self-renewing
Enlist family members to share the load
Decrease your demands… what needs to be dropped?
Adopt energy boosters… what things give you energy?
Create a new storyboard for your life to remind you of the next steps
Take care of you, people are your farm business’s most important asset.

Elaine Froese hates it when people say “she must be busy.” As a certified coach from the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara, Elaine has amazing strategies for mapping out a great way to live intentionally and make conscious choices.
She removed “all hurriedness from her life” after a serious bout of post-partum depression. Her empathy for mental health is widely appreciated by her audiences as she confronts the true challenge of self care which is not selfish. As a depression survivor, she places a high priority on staying healthy.
Elaine has been writing and speaking about balanced living in a complex world since 1987. She knows it is never a quick fix project, but an ongoing process of choosing what is most important to you in the present season of your life.