Sarah Kreutzer began her working life training difficult horses but she soon realised that the trouble stemmed from the owners, not the animals. “People were bringing me problem horses but they were the ones who needed to learn, not their horses,” she said.
Horses mirror the behaviour of humans around them, so a nervous or aggressive owner will end up with a nervous or aggressive horse. “If you try to fight a horse, it will fight back,” Kreutzer said. “If you try to make it do something, it will tend to be resistant. They put their backs up quite literally, bucking and rearing.”
It’s this characteristic that makes them so useful in the management development courses that Kreutzer now runs: participants get constant feedback from the horse.
“I have had people tell me that they are a good leader, but then it turns out that they can’t even influence a horse,” said the boss of Learning to Listen, based near Wetherby, North Yorkshire.
Kreutzer insisted that her sessions test leadership skills, rather than animal husbandry. “It’s not about your expertise with horses — they are just the medium that shows you what you look like to others. It’s about who you are as a person. For example, some people are great at connecting, some are no good at setting boundaries, others are great at motivating but won’t listen.”
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One of the tasks Kreutzer sets participants is to ask a team to work together to keep a pony on a piece of tarpaulin without letting it walk away or eat a treat set in the middle of the tarp. If they work together and each does their assigned task, it can be done; more often, people try to do each others’ jobs, and the pony trots off amid the confusion.
Alison Lowe, chief executive of Touchstone, a mental health charity, was surprised by how closely the horses’ behaviour reflected that of her colleagues. For example, one senior manager who is a friendly but not assertive leader simply could not make the horse do anything asked of it. “There are a lot like this in the voluntary sector,” Lowe said. “They are there for their caring natures, which are important, but as they rise up the ranks they also have to be able to lead.”
Being able to talk about the horses’ reactions, rather than having to confront individuals directly, made it easier to start discussions about behavioural issues because it was less personal, Lowe said. In the case of the manager, it helped them gain more insight, which is now being supported by other development tools.
Lowe has changed her own leadership style since going on the course. Instead of giving detailed answers and multiple options when people ask her questions, she explains what needs to be done and lets them find their own way to do it. “I realised that I was good at leading and motivating but that I also tend to keep going back and saying, ‘Come on, what are you doing?’ Many of the people asking questions were really just asking for validation of what they already planned to do,” she said.
Lowe learnt something else about herself, though only when she relaxed enough to let her professional persona drop and one of the horses started nuzzling her. “I realised that I used to be a gentle person, even though I present a hard shell to the outside world. It helped me to realise how much more effective I could be if I connected with my softer side, the side that listens more.”
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It’s this last point — the value of listening — that Kreutzer hopes to get across in her sessions. “If you want to be able to lead and to work as part of a team, you need to be able to connect with other people, which means you need to listen to them,” she said.
Talk to the animals
Go ape: Bond with your colleagues while scrambling through the treetops using rope ladders, high wires and wooden bridges. It does not involve actual apes. (goape.co.uk) n I’m a team player, get me out of here: Prove your commitment to the corporate cause by overcoming jungle-themed challenges that involve snakes, spiders, scorpions and meerkats. The organiser promises that participants only have to handle the critters, not eat them. (eventus.co.uk/team-player.asp) n Alliance with lions: Horses not challenging enough? Try bonding with lions in South Africa. The aim is to create a sense of common purpose through activities such as playing with cubs and pretending to be a lion. (lifetime-experiences.co.za/lionheart.htm)