I saw an interesting piece in Personnel Today in June that I’ve been meaning to post something on. Tony Pettengell reported a development programme run by Spring Partnerships and training company Choose2B called Horses for Courses – which uses the art of ‘Horse Whispering’ to develop authentic leadership, a topic I touched on at the beginning of July (http://carycooperblog.com/2008/06/19/authentic-is-always-best/)
Companies such as Carlsberg and BMW have used the technique, reportedly to good effect – but what is it all about and how does it benefit leaders? Well, the article reminds us of UCLA’s Professor Albert Mehrabian’s assertion that 93% of all communication is non-verbal and the theory is that working with horses can help us to tune in to how others (horses in this case) respond to our behaviour. Managing this behaviour requires constant effort and this at the heart of the development.
Gareth Chick, a director of business consultants Spring Partnership is quoted:
“It’s about authentic leadership, about being empathetic, getting your message across non-verbally and using positive reinforcement. Horses have no preconceived ideas and are not prejudiced by who you are, the house you live in, the clothes you wear, the car you drive,”
Trust is also a factor – so just as in the workplace with your staff, you have to earn the trust of the horse and then work to maintain that trust – and that requires concentration.
Lisa Brice, managing director at Choose2B, commented:
“By taking away words, we are forced to really think about the way we act and the impact this has on others. Achieving rapport with the horse to establish a relationship of mutual trust is not about showmanship and dominance; it’s about establishing ground rules and boundaries and communicating consistently.”
There are definite parallels here with what it takes to be an engaging leader or manager – consistently putting effort in to get best out of your staff and understanding their needs.
On the course, participants learn how to shape and position their bodies so as not to appear threatening to the horse. When they get it right the horse will follow them around the ring, but the journalist reports that as soon as he lost concentration, the horse picked up on his lack of focus and went off to do its own thing. Not unlike many people that I have worked with over the years!!
This will not be for every company or every leader, but it sounds like a good way to take time away from everyday tasks and focus on what’s important to your staff. What I like about this approach is something similar to what I discussed in my two recent golf-related blogs – by doing something new, taking a different perspective you can achieve things you didn’t know you were capable of. In this case, the new perspective is, strangely, that of a horse!
Yes, I’m not a learning professional, but what I found fascinating is this recurrent (almost zen-like) idea that if you let go of what you think you know, you find out more about what you’re actually doing.
At a slight tangent, I’d be interested in Professor’s Cooper’s thoughts on Gerd Gigerenzer’s work on heuristics – this view that our automatic responses are actually based on sound experiences and that our conscious thinking can sometimes get in the way. Certainly, I’d imagine that the introduction of different emotional states to any given situation could be disenabling to how we might think and perceive things.
Back to the point, I wonder if Professor Cooper has any other insights into how alternative activities can sharpen our understanding of interpersonal interactions? (apart from golf, which I am terrible at!).
I am a Taino Indian and a mix of many other races. My name is Angelina and my father always told me growing up that I was his little horse whisperer. I used to never know what that meant. I was small, but now I’m 18 years old and I understand a little more. Its not something you try to be, its a gift given to you. Something that comes upon you and makes you feel the warmth and love and a great connection between you and the Horse. I never really considered horses just an animal. I always considered them as my brothers and sisters, my family. When I am with them, my pain goes away, and when I say good-bye, I feel like I just had the best conversation in my life. I do talk to them, and if you listen well you can hear them talk back, and their voices are so sweet yet so bold. They have this voice that just moves every part of your body, makes you tingle, feel their words run through your brain, your arms, belly, legs, and you just relax. If you look to be a horse whisperer, I do not think you will find it, I think you have to wait for the gift to seek and find you. And if it never does find you then it simply was not meant to be. But don’t get your hopes down because you never know when it will hit you. I believe it hits everyone in life, its just that some people can hear, but not listen to the sweet melody that whispers between a horses lips.
Fantastic! I was searching for some information on this all day. I wish that people would write more about this. I really appreciate the post