When tough questions arise in the field, knowing how to navigate beyond your scope of practice is just as important as knowing your trade.
Learn to handle conversations that push past your professional boundaries without losing trust, build deeper bias awareness in your recommendations, and start mining the resources around you. Master the key phrases and language needed for real conversations that address awkward, high-stakes, or out-of-bounds questions with confidence and clarity.
Learning Objectives:
- Recognize the boundaries of your scope of practice and confidently steer out-of-bounds questions toward qualified experts.
- Develop bias awareness to ensure your advice remains objective, balanced, and farmer-focused.
- Practice mining the resources, networks, and specialist tools available to retrieve reliable information quickly.
- Master key phrases and language for real conversations to hold firm, transparent, and credible boundaries on the farm.
Instructors:
Patti Durand PAg, FEA
Strategic Action Planner, Author, and Speaker
Patti Durand is the founder of Brightrack Consulting, where she works as a Strategic Action Planner helping family businesses navigate the challenges of transition and succession. She brings a practitioner’s perspective to her work, having guided hundreds of Canadian farm business families through confident decision-making during periods of significant change. Durand equips families and advisors with the mindset and language they need to lead effectively together, offering relatable, actionable strategies that help business families move forward with clarity and certainty. She is the author of The Future Leader and a sought-after speaker on family business leadership and succession planning. Durand also co-hosts How Could I Know? podcast, where she explores how business families overcome challenges and the lessons they learn as a result.
Toban Dyck
Toban Dyck farms near Winkler, Man., on the same land his family has worked for five generations. In summer, he can be seen lumbering down less-traveled roads on his KLR650 motorcycle. Dyck is excitable – easily escalated when talking about extension. He also writes from time to time.
Dyck got into journalism in a way that is best explained as serendipitous. He studied philosophy and politics. He asked for an internship at CBC and got it (even though he didn’t officially apply and shouldn’t have gotten it). Since then, he managed a small newsroom on Queen Street and worked as a reporter/editor for the National Post in Toronto – all before returning to the family farm.
Dyck’s writing has appeared in the Financial/National Post, Grainews, Maclean’s, The Economist, Globe and Mail, and The Western Producer, among others. He’s as comfortable behind a podium as he is behind a combine wheel, and he’s passionate about telling stories that help agriculture move forward—honestly, clearly, and with heart.
He co-hosts The Extensionists podcast, serves as principal of Burr Forest Group, and loves camping and building things.