This is a conversation for farmers not to be missed! Allan Parker OAM was a crowd favourite at VicNoTill's conference Transition23 and captured the attention of the whole room within 10 seconds of starting his presentation.

VicNoTill board member Michael Gooden catches up with Allan in Wagga Wagga during his 2024 Regional Brain Reset Tour to talk about succession planning, improving negotiation between family members when making farm decisions, transitioning to a more regenerative farming system without compromising the profitability of the business and a whole lot more.

Allan introduces himself as an eccentric Micro-Behavioural Neuroscientist, International Negotiator, and Educator. Outside his work life he has been a professional golfer and has run 16 marathons and 11 ultra marathons (including 24 hours twice). He wrote Australia’s first degree in negotiation in 2012 and was the recipient of an Order of Australia Medal for his contribution to business and dispute resolution in 2019.

From the boardrooms of the biggest corporate organisations in the world to the kitchen tables on rural and remote farming properties, Allan Parker’s approach to negotiation is the same. The author of The Negotiator’s Toolkit, the bestseller Switch on Your Brain; and co-author of Beyond Yes – Negotiating and Networking says there is great wisdom in Charlie Arnott’s saying ‘the paddock between our ears is what we’ve got to get sorted out first’.

“Negotiation, whether informal chat on the phone or chat in hallway or something bigger and more serious, we are involved in negotiating the whole time. Everything you think inside your head turns up in your verbal conversation in some form or another," Allan says.