"There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man."
Winston Churchill
Why Horses
INDIVIDUALS
Horses are the ultimate “NOW” generation. Because their actual survival depends upon their ability to monitor and correctly interpret environmental threats (non-verbal communication) up to 3 miles away they have become very skilled in staying present and distraction free. Studies show that less than 10% of what we communicate is in the words we speak. Thus they are the perfect mirrors to help us to become more aware of our non-verbal communication skills.
Horses offer 1,000+ pounds of instantaneous, personal, visual feedback. People are more likely to respond to “negative” feedback from a horse as sign something didn’t work as planned and they need to try something different rather than a personal insult or attack. Not always their first reaction when receiving negative feedback from a person.
Ropes courses teach you to ignore and overcome your fear based on increasing your trust in the harness to hold you safe. To feel the fear and do it anyway. When working with large, powerful animals this advice would be irresponsible and everything we do is challenge by choice. The fear may or may not be providing you with useful information. Working with horses gives you the opportunity to confront, understand, and make choices about the information that fear is giving you. And the opportunity to modify that decision as the situation changes. Building your ability to assess danger and make calm, emotional intelligent choices in the face of fear. Crucial skills for a leader navigating emergent change in new and risky territory.
TEAMS
Herds of horses have very complex social relationships, codes of conducts, and hierarchical structures. The survival of each individual horse depends on its ability to navigate the herd dynamics successfully in order to remain a part of the herd. Isolation from the herd is, in most cases, a life-threatening event.
Leadership within the herd is distributed among several horses. In order for the herd to thrive those leadership roles must be clear and the horses test them regularly to ensure they are still valid. Horses are hard wired to challenge weak leadership and gifted at returning to harmonious relationships once the challenge has been met.
Forgiving yet Demanding of Leaders - 100% present and expect you to be also. Uncomfortable with inauthenticity or incongruent behavior and unwilling to engage fully if you don’t. Generally, horses are very forgiving and if you change, they respond differently and immediately - which helps you first understand and then choose how you are showing up in each moment.
Can’t gossip or laugh at you and don’t have fingers to point or phones to record youtube videos.....
Standardized Courses
The crucial skills required to successfully lead complex change are deeply personal and require extensive practice to gain awareness, and develop resiliency, grace, subtlety, and mastery. In some cases the very skills in which you excelled in traditional leadership can be the ones blocking your success today as an emergent and complex change leader.
Yet practicing with humans can result in bruised egos, brittle relationships, damaged reputations, and confusing messages. So where do you go to practice these crucial skills? If you were learning to play golf you could go to the range to try new clubs, expand your options, fine-tune your mechanics and become comfortable and skilled with the changes - privately - before unveiling your game to your colleagues or competitors.
We believe that horses are uniquely qualified to be the perfect learning partner and that the corral provides the ideal practice arena for understanding and improving your complex change leadership skills.
- Dynamics of Power
- Leadership Styles
- Handling Conflict and Resistance
- Leadership Presence and Connection
- Integrated Decision Making - Head, Heart, Gut
- Strategic Visioning
- Emotional Intelligence
- Self Confidence
- Authentic Leadership
Customized Courses
We are happiest when we can tailor a unique experience to address the specific issues that are top of mind for you and your team - right now. Our clients tell us that our approaches are much more transformative, effective and memorable than traditional approaches.
Based on your objectives we will help you design the ideal experience for your and your team utilizing any combination of the following skills and formats:
Pay it Forward
We believe that in order to truly make possible all the impossible changes our world needs - it is crucial that the next generations of leaders are given the opportunity, at an early age, to develop the unique skills necessary to understand, envision, and lead complex change. Let’s face it - most schools just don’t teach us how to color well when the lines keep changing or disappearing, our pens keep morphing, and somebody is constantly upgrading our paper...We don’t want tomorrow’s leaders to waste the time making all the mistakes we have made to learn these lessons when we are counting on them to lead us all to the next level of excellence. We would like your help in showing them an alternative way to lead and deliver complex change - as part of a community of crazy world-changers.
We are still setting up the details of this program but when you attend a Leadership Corral TM program you will be able to sponsor a member of the youth leadership or not-for-profit organization of your choice to attend a day’s training with us on behalf of your organization. Once a year we will get the entire community together to share stories, keep the community learning, and hatch some cunning plans to spread a little more crazy around the globe. If you know of any organizations striving to deliver important changes in any area - who could use a little help and a bit of our kind of crazy - please get in touch with us on our “Contact Us” page and get them on our radar.