When Pauline Redpath co-founder of Source People approached me about the red horse speaks®, she was looking for “something that really tested the leadership skills of our management team and not just something that allowed them to sit about and talk about what they thought makes good leadership.”
Pauline had already had good reports about the programme from one of her staff who had experienced it with a previous employer and, in spite of some scepticism from other members of the management team, decided that it fitted the bill perfectly.
Source People was formed five years ago to provide innovative and professional recruitment solutions primarily for skilled professionals within the Oil and Gas industry in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America and Africa. Their core presence is in Aberdeen and they also operate a division in the USA, based in Houston. As a company, they pride themselves on building long lasting relationships based on trust and respect.
Working closely with Pauline and her fellow director David Priestley to understand where the business was going and how the management team was currently performing, I designed a day of activities with the horses that would meet the needs of both the team and the individuals within it.
The red horse speaks® programme was the first in Scotland to offer experiential learning with horses when it was founded in 2004. All activities are carried out on the ground and no knowledge of horses is expected. Some level of anxiety about horses is very common at the start of the day but dissipates quickly due to the carefully designed introduction to the horses at the start of the session.
The programme is experiential in nature and uses a supportive coaching and solution focused approach which encourages participants to explore possibilities and new behaviour in an atmosphere where there are no mistakes, only learning. Challenge is by choice – although participants are encouraged to stretch themselves, asking for as much help as they need.
The workshops are delivered for about 8 to 12 participants usually working with two horses and two facilitators, although larger teams can be accommodated. One facilitator has strong business skills and will link the learning back to the workplace. The other has strong horse skills and ensures that all the feedback from the horses is noticed and understood.
The programme uses a typical experiential model. After each activity, which could include working individually or as a group with horses at liberty or on a lead rope, there is an opportunity for review and then a discussion about how to take the learning back into the workplace. Tailored workbooks are produced for each workshop and participants are encouraged to record their learning and action points throughout the day. During each activity the facilitation takes the form of coaching questions and helping participants notice their body language and intentions so that they can anchor them for future use.
The programme for Source People was held at the home of the red horse speaks® in Midmar, Aberdeenshire – about twenty minutes from the outskirts of Aberdeen and just far enough to make it a bit of an adventure for those not used to the countryside. The weather was fine enough to be outside although there is also an indoor facility in case of rain. Workshops are also available at other centres in UK and overseas.
At the start of the day, the team were a little anxious about the horses but soon became more relaxed and worked their way through a number of activities individually and as a team.
One of the exercises had the team working together to move a horse to a designated spot in the field. The metaphor was that the horse represented a client they wanted to attract to their business and the designated spot represented their office. There were only three rules:
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They could not touch the horse (just as they would not “drag” the client to their office)
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They could speak to each other whilst planning but not when they were engaging with the horse good practice for non-verbal communication)
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They could not bribe the horse (on the assumption that they did not bribe clients. This rule often gives rise to interesting conversations about the difference between bribes, incentives and rewards.)
The team were reminded that “When it works, do more of it. When it doesn’t, do something different.” They were also reminded that they could always regroup for another conversation if they needed to. The team soon discovered that the horse ignored them unless they were all of one mind and holding to their plan. It took them a little while to put this into practice but once they did so they could move the horse very easily and hold her attention once they had her in the “office.” They attempted this activity with two different horses and noticed what needed to change to be successful with each one.
As Pauline said “the programme demonstrated a number of things to the Source team but in particular it emphasised how developing collective common goals helps employees and managers alike to really pull together and work in unity to fulfil objectives. The team learned valuable lessons in work ethic, responsibility, assertiveness, communication and relationship building all of which have greatly assisted our everyday work back in the office. It was fantastic and beyond expectation in terms of learning and awareness.”
One year on, the team are still reaping the benefits of their day with the horses. The language of horses has become part of their vocabulary and they find themselves using expressions such as “We need to take off our blinkers” or “We need to pull back the reins.” They still look at the photographs taken during the day as a reminder to explore challenges from a different angle. There has also been follow up in respect of individual relationships within the team when reference to the horses serves as a reminder of how well they can work together when everyone is at their best.
One team member was particularly anxious about the horses and he was able to use his experience of overcoming this fear as he moved into a new role at work which was also causing him some anxiety.
In addition to the learning, it was a great opportunity for Pauline and David to see their team in a different environment and for the whole group to spend time together. With all scepticism now dispelled, Source People are planning to send more groups out to learn with the horses. As Pauline said “It’s important for our staff to be able to read people and situations and to pick up the non-verbal signals. Who better to learn this from than horses – the experts in this field.”
So why is this form of training so successful? Whilst leadership theory can be taught in the classroom, leadership itself is about behaviour and therefore needs to be taught experientially. As Daniel Goleman points out “Failure to take this (difference) into account wastes an immense investment in development and training each year. As I write this, millions upon millions of dollars are being wasted in training programmes that have no lasting impact. It amounts to a billion dollar mistake.”
Training also needs to be memorable in order for it to be applied. Joe Dispenza in his book ‘Evolve your Brain – the Science of Changing Your Mind’, explains what makes an event memorable: “Once an event is embraced by our senses, the more novel or new the experience is, the stronger the signal to the brain. The stronger the signal, the more likely the memory is to be stored long-term. What determines the strength of the signal? The extent to which we consider the event to be new, unpredictable, out of routine, uncommon and unfamiliar. Because our senses are so involved in any new experience, it is the novel combination of cumulative sensory information that pushes the familiar threshold of the nervous system and bombards the brain with an abundance of new inputs.
Horses fit the bill perfectly as training partners for leadership and team development. For most people they are uncommon and unfamiliar. Their very nature also makes them suitable. Horses are acutely sensitive to our body language and intentions. In the wild, they are prey creatures so noticing the slightest flicker of an ear on the edge of the herd could be the difference between life and death. Thus, they read people very easily and give excellent feedback on the impact of our physical presence (how we “show up”), acting as mirrors for us and indicating the changes we need to make to become more effective.
However, horses are as individual as humans and so what works with one may not work with another. Thus by working with different horses, the participants are able to practise a range of styles that gives them the flexibility needed in the workplace.
Inspired by the positive feedback from our clients, I am now doing a PhD at Edinburgh Napier University to measure the impact of horses on humans. This form of learning is quite new and so understanding why it works so well is important for the continuous improvement of our programme and also to establish the field in general. Since starting to collect data we have discovered that not only do people have fun, learn a lot and apply the learning, even when they start the day anxious about horses, but that the programme also has a positive effect on the wellbeing of the participants. Given concerns about levels of stress in the workplace, this is an important aspect of time spent with the horses – and probably a major contributor to the success of the learning as there is plenty of research which shows that people learn more easily when they are relaxed and feeling well.
Points for thought
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Leaders often need to be reminded that they have bodies as well as brains and that leadership is as much about behaviour and their physical presence as it is about their business skills.
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Leaving time for self-reflection and relationship building between colleagues is an important component of team and personal development events.
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Horses have no agenda and so their feedback is accepted and acted upon – even if the message is the same one that human colleagues have been trying to pass on for many years!
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