Merlin's Magic Part 2 - What My Horse Has Taught Me About Leadership

In my last blog, I talked about my experience training a previously unhandled horse and the lessons I could take from that experience and apply to training people.

In this blog, I want to use the same experience to talk about leadership.

To train a horse, you first have to become a leader to that horse. Leadership is an integral part of horse life. Every herd has a leader – although the role can change. In our herd (of three!) there is a clear leader. The hierarchy is most apparent when you want to bring the horses in – they always come off the field in the same order and both boys will ‘hang back’ to show due deference to our mare. (As I write this, Bobby is making a huge racket outside because my partner is off riding the mare and he’s been left behind!)

In episode 1 of my home videos, I illustrate something that Monty Roberts causes Join Up. It’s a powerful illustration of what can happen when you establish your leadership credentials and something I found quite emotional the first few times it happened. An effective leader can lead his horse not just from the front, but from the side, from behind or, of course, from above.

So, how do you establish yourself as a leader of a horse, and what can that teach us about leading people?

Here is a list of things that Merlin has taught me about being a leader of horses:

1. You only become a leader when the horse sees you as a leader – not when you give yourself the label. (If you have to chase your horse round the field to catch him, who’s the leader?)
 

2. Leadership is built on trust. The horse will only truly follow you if he trusts and respects you.

Communication starts with listening. You have to listen to what the horse is telling you (through body language) and the feedback you’re receiving in order to understand their perspective and be able to work with it.
 

3. Never deal with issues in anger. If you’re angry, walk away. Horses don’t respond well to anger and anything you might do in the heat of the moment is likely to result in a defensive, knee jerk (and often dangerous) reaction. (Fear and previous difficult experiences are often at the heart of long-term behavioural problems too.)
 

4. Punishment simply doesn’t work as a tool for improving the performance of your horse. It’s important to focus on rewarding the right behaviours, rather than punishing the wrong ones. And, when asking them to change a behaviour, it’s important to reward the ‘slightest try’.
 

5. One of my roles is to establish clear goals and expectations for the horse and myself. Goals need to be a mixture of short-term goals (getting him to clear a low jump without hitting it) medium-term goals (riding him) and long-term goals (competing?).
 

6. My job, ultimately, is to help my horse be the best he can be. I need to regularly review performance and be ready to challenge Merlin in order to help him step outside of his comfort zone and achieve his full potential (for example, when dealing with the puddle phobia).
 

7. Finally, the reward. The more successful I am as a leader, the easier (and safer) my life becomes. A horse that is unafraid, willing, that can be guided with the lightest touch, that feels valued, respected and listened to, is a joy to work with.

Personally, I think you could replace the word horse with person (or people on occasion to keep it grammatically correct) and end up with eight pretty decent golden rules for leading people too. (And, no, I don’t have to chase my team round a field in order to get them to come in to work!)

What do you think? As always, I'd love to hear your views. You can leave your comments here, or if you prefer, email me.

(And now I promise to get off my high horse and talk about something else next time. Actually, he’s not that high…)

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Merlin’s Magic Part 1 - What My Horse Has Taught Me About Training

Those of you who attended this year’s Trainers’ Conference will know that over the course of the last twelve months, I’ve fulfilled a lifelong ambition. In July last year I bought a previously unhandled horse and started on the journey of training him myself. It's been a thrilling adventure.

I bought my first horse nine years ago as a novice and since that time I’ve learned a lot about natural horsemanship, a concept I was lucky enough to be introduced to by a friend in Cumbria. My first horse, Bobby, is about 19 now and is a trusting and trusted friend.

In a nutshell, natural horsemanship involves communicating with horses in their own language. It relies heavily on body language but also on a few simple principles based on how horses communicate with each other.

I consider training Merlin to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and the process is teaching me a lot about horses. What I didn’t expect however, was how much of what I was learning would apply to leading and training people too.

I go into detail about some of the learning points that I can apply to training people below. But, before I get on to those, you might like to view some home movies. My partner filmed me 'at work' with Merlin on two separate occasions and they'll show you something of the journey I've been on. I've added captions too to hopefully help make some sense of what's going on. To view them, click here.


The Learning:

1. Horses learn most when they are right on the edge of their comfort zone. Merlin lets me know when he’s at that edge by blowing a little through this nose. At this point he’s telling me that he’s feeling challenged but he’s able to control his nerves. If I push him too far and he becomes scared, he’ll panic. At this point anything he learns will be negative as he tries to escape the whole learning experience.

People are a lot like that. No-one learns much when they’re in a state of panic and any lessons learned will almost certainly revolve around ‘how can I avoid ever being in this situation again’. But we do need to be encouraged to push the boundaries of our existing comfort zone in order to learn and expand it.


2. My role as Merlin’s trainer is to help him find his own solutions to the problems I present him. So, when I wanted to train him to jump over a pole, I deliberately took the pressure off when he reached the jump and gave him time to think and work out how to overcome the challenge himself. I also rewarded him each time he completed the task successfully by giving him a little break/time to relax. As a prey animal, horses really value feeling safe and under no pressure.

It’s important to make the ‘learning space’ in organisations safe too; a space that is not demeaning and that is free of recrimination or ridicule. And, whether it’s learning a new process or skill or going through a large change programme, people will be motivated if they feel that where they’re heading is better than the place they’re leaving – that they’ll feel more comfortable when the journey is complete.


3. Perhaps the most important lesson of all when training a horse is to communicate in a clear and consistent way that the horse understands. I need to use his language, not mine. Body language and words must deliver the same message.

The same applies to people.

(When I look back on the videos I can see where my communication is muddled or unclear and I can see the confusion this causes.)


4. Reward and recognition is important. Horses can be rewarded by treats but I prefer praise and comfort (which can be as simple as a rest or a stroke) as reward mechanisms.

It’s important to recognise and reward people’s learning successes too. (Though I strongly recommend you find alternatives to the neck stroke.) And a break from the pressure of learning can be a reward for people too. (I have a few friends at the moment who are doing degree qualifications and I know how much they’re looking forward to a break from the essays.)


5. Learning is experiential. You can’t explain to a horse how to do something – they have to learn by experimentation and doing. (Try showing a horse how to jump a fence or run at 30mph whilst carrying someone on your back and you’ll get my point.)

I have always firmly believed that people too learn best when the learning is experience based, testing and applying their skills, knowledge and beliefs in order to develop them.


6. A pause gives the horse time to reflect on the learning that is occurring. (A horse will often lick his lips when he’s processing new ideas or information. It’s a sign that he’s ‘got it’. You'll see he does this in the video very clearly when watching the traffic pass him by.)

Pauses within the learning experience are important for people too; providing opportunities to reflect on what they’ve learnt and think about how they might apply that learning .


7. Training Merlin involves lots of repetition and review to reinforce the learning and build confidence.

Practice and review are critically important for people too and help to turn ideas into established habit and changed behaviours.


8. When I'm training Merlin, the learning has to be in ‘bite size’ chunks. It’s important to know when to stop in order to avoid confusing him or turning him off the learning experience.

And, once again, the same surely is absolutely true of people.


Well, there we go. I knew I couldn’t be succinct when on my absolute favourite topic of my horses. And I haven’t even got onto to the lessons about leadership, which I’ll cover next time.

In the meantime, if you’ve any thoughts about this blog or want to challenge any of my learning points, let me know.

And if you have any questions about the videos, or natural horsemanship, I’d love to hear those too. It’s a topic I’m passionate about.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

The Power and Weakness of Images

I received an email that has really made me think. I’m still thinking about it now as I read back over my completed blog. There is no doubt that the email’s author has a point (which we’ll address) but the email also made me think about the nature of images and how we interpret them.

The email I received was a criticism about the nature of the photographs on Trainers’ Images. The writer suggested that our images played to stereotypes. To quote: “It was interesting to note that images around problem-solving and decision making in the main feature men, images around coaching feature women, images around gossiping feature women and images relating to working late feature men.”

Good grief, I thought (or something similar) when I checked the images in question – it’s a fair cop. And it is. If you choose to interpret some images in a certain way they could show a gossiping woman, for example. And certainly the pictures showing decision making depict men.

But hang on, those images don’t show decision making at all – they show a complete inability to make decisions don’t they? What a terrible slur on the male of the species.

And doesn’t that image with the ‘gossiping woman’ actually show a really ineffectual male manager, prepared to act on hearsay rather than observed behaviour?

And when we get to “images around coaching feature women” things become really interesting. I checked back – every coaching image bar one, features a man and a woman and in each it’s not possible to clearly state who’s coaching whom. (They were deliberately set up that way.)

The way photographs are interpreted can tell us a great deal about the observer’s ‘map of the world’. Indeed, our own interpretations will tend to reflect our own expectations of the world. It’s a similar principle to the ideas used in the Witches of Glum exercise.

Look through our photographs again, by following this link. Personally I think the way we’ve portrayed women as bullying, but otherwise effective and conscientious people who have all the bright ideas and men as ineffective, anorak wearing, accident prone buffoons, who can’t manage time, their intrays or other people, or even decide, come to that, if they need an umbrella or not, is appalling. ;-)

Of course we’ve more to do to ensure a balance in our portfolio of images and we’ll always make sure we mix roles up to ensure, as far as possible, that we never categorise behaviours based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability or any other difference. (For the first two photoshoots, we employed an even split of male and female models ranging from their early twenties to their late sixties, from ten different ethnic backgrounds. And that’s not easy to accomplish with 16 models!)

There’s a point to be made here about the power and weakness of photographs. There is a weakness because photographs can lead to powerful connections that we may not expect, or desire. And that’s where deliberately vague images, like the abstracts we’re creating for Trainers’ Images can come into their own. By removing some of the detail, we can remove most of the information our brains need to jump to conclusions.

But there’s real power too in the fact that images will be interpreted in a particular way based on an individual’s inbuilt view of the world. This emotional connection can be used to provoke thought and discussion around issues ranging from equal opportunities and diversity through to management and leadership style, and even positive v negative behaviour. Take the working late thing, for example. You might view this as depicting positive behaviour – the conscientious employee. I see it as a negative image – depicting someone unable to manage his working day effectively, or perhaps a potentially damaging organisational culture. (I’ve worked in an organisation where I observed employees competing to be last in the office – but more about that another time!)

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

The Inner Voice

It’s a few weeks now since this year’s Trainers’ Conference, and I’ve been reflecting on my own learning and insights. The most important for me, I think, was the power of the ‘inner voice’.

I was struck by the significance both of our keynote speakers, Jim Lawless and Sally Gunnell put on the ‘inner voice’.

We all have an inner voice – as Jim says, it might be the one that just said “no, I don’t!” And it has a huge impact on our emotions, beliefs and ultimately what we actually do and achieve.

The inner voice is particularly good, in my experience, at preventing you taking action. Like right now – I actually want to take a few hours off work this afternoon to pop into Exeter but that voice is coming up with all the reasons why I can’t:

“It’s a ‘work day’, you’ve already had one day off this week and besides, you’re all behind, look at the number of emails in your inbox and just look at the state of your desk. You can’t even see the surface to dust it. And anyway, it’ll be too late soon.”

Oh dear.

I experienced the full impact of the inner voice last year when I first thought about fulfilling a life-long ambition. I’ll talk more about that adventure another time but in short my ambition was to buy and train, by myself, an unbroken (I hate that word) horse.

The inner voice had a field day with that (forgive the pun):

“You’ve no idea what to do. You’ve never even been near an unbroken horse. They’re dangerous. You don’t have the skills and, besides, you’re too old now.”

Ouch!

It was actually the age thing that made me challenge the inner voice – the realisation, (which I think only comes to you in your forties) that time isn’t endless.

So, I did what Sally talked a lot about. I changed the inner voice. Instead of worrying about my lack of skills, I thought about how it would feel to work with a young horse. I imagined a bond developing and the feeling I would get the first time I sat on my horse. I thought about what help there might be if I needed it and I focused on the need to take action now, because time isn’t endless.

Right now, I’m tasting lunch in Exeter. See ya. :-)

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Decisions Decisions

I think the internet is driving me mad. Or I’ve got OCD. Or something. Tonight I’ve spent about 2 hours choosing a new tap for the kitchen sink. In fairness, that’s significantly less than the hundreds of hours I spent researching saddles before buying one of those. And as for the holiday, I think I spent more time researching and choosing that than I’m actually going to spend on the holiday!

If I added up the hours and hours and hours I spend researching on the internet and worked it out as a percentage of my waking life, (and especially my ‘leisure time’) I know it would confirm the worst – that I’m a serial procrastinator.

The sheer volume – the absolute plethora of information available to me is actually grinding

the decision making process to a standstill.

Of course, the trouble with the internet is that for every published opinion there is an equally credible one somewhere else that states the complete opposite.

The same can be true when faced with problems at work. What’s more, the dangers are the same and the results can be equally crippling to us as individuals and the organisations we work for.

We can spend so long investigating a problem, trying to make sure we have every piece of available information before we make a decision that we never make any decisions at all.

Sadly, making no decision is often worse than making an imperfect decision. After all,
a lack of decisions can mean that new products and services are never developed or are developed too late, problems remain unresolved and organisations simply suffocate in a murky pond of inactivity (I’m quite pleased with that metaphor. J)

So here’s a thought. What about if the first decision we made was always about how much time we were going to allow ourselves to investigate the problem and develop some options? And the second was to make a decision at the end of that period?

I’ll let you know how it goes, just as soon as I’ve decided on a finish for this tap.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Customer Service 4 - Flexibility

This is the final in my current series of four blogs on the topic of customer service. When I started writing about customer service the thought did cross my mind that this was rather akin to training trainers. I was putting myself right in the firing line. 


So, I’m delighted to have reached this point without anyone having questioned my credibility or ability to write about customer service with authority. I take this as a good sign that we’re providing a good example of what customer service should look and feel like, which is a credit to my team.


(It is however, a good job these particular articles weren’t on the topic of grammar. Thank you to the customer who spotted last month’s faux pas before (hopefully) too many of you saw it.)


Anyway, back to customer service. In my previous blogs, I’ve written about the need for basic, fundamental skills (and product knowledge would fall into this category), listening and empathy. This month I want to consider flexibility. 


When I started to write this month’s blog I realised that my previous example of good customer service (the toasted fruit and seed bar, in case you need reminding) actually provided a good example of what I wanted to show this month. In fact I realised that flexibility is really what becomes possible when the other three elements are in place: having a good understand of what you can do and how to do it, (basic skills) what the customers needs, desires and wants are (listening) and caring (empathy). There is one proviso here though, and that is that the organisation’s culture must allow, and actually actively encourage, flexibility in order to ensure the customer’s needs are met. 


A good example would be when I ordered a new printer. It was for my home office but I was paying for it with my business credit card, which is billed to our office in Alston. Normally, the company would not dispatch a first order to a different address (for good reasons) but because the lady I dealt with had a good understanding of the processes (and who she needed to talk to get them overruled), my needs and cared, she was able to arrange for the printer to be delivered to my home the very next day. 


The thing is, we all want to be treated like individuals, not numbers, and flexibility is the way we can demonstrate to our customers that they are just that. It’s not rocket science – it just means putting the customer first. You’ll notice I say ‘the customer’ (singular) not ‘customers’ plural. There’s a big difference.


I couldn’t possibly end this series of articles without mentioning an email I received from Charity, who many of you will know as your Customer Relationship Manager, following last month’s newsletter. She said: “I just thought I’d let you know I thoroughly enjoyed your blog this month – no wonder you were so interested in my ‘empathic soup’ stories at my interview!” I’d almost forgotten about Charity’s soup story. She used it as an example of displaying customer service in a previous career (working in a café) and it’s what secured her job here at Glasstap. It’s a brilliant example of flexibility and I recommend you ask her about it. ☺

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com

Customer Service 3 - Empathy

This is the third of my blogs on the topic of customer service and what separates ordinary service from excellent service. In previous months, I’ve considered the importance of a solid foundation of knowledge and basic skills, and listening skills. This time, I want to consider empathy as a skill.

When customers talk about a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude, what they are actually referring to is an apparent lack of empathy. Empathy is a vital component of customer service. It means being able to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and consider the situation from their perspective.

Take a recent visit to a shop where I was buying paint. Whilst the assistant mixed the paint I’d requested I started to look through the wallpaper books. On her return, I sensed that far from being encouraged, my continued presence in the shop was an inconvenience. I was so sure that I was no longer welcome that I asked if it was OK to look for some wallpapers and curtain fabric whilst I was there.

“Well, I’m just shutting”, she replied, “because I need to look after the other shop during the lunch period.”

Now, the other shop was literally ten yards away on the other side of a narrow street.

I’m sure a solution could have been found. As a regular customer, perhaps the assistant could have trusted me enough to leave me in the first shop browsing whilst letting me know she’d be across in the other shop if I needed her or had made a choice.

But the assistant was completely absorbed by her own needs and focused on her own desires to give much attention to what my perspective might be. She had no interest in discovering that, far from living a few yards down the road, I’d travelled 15 miles to visit her shop, and that I wouldn’t have another opportunity to do so for a few weeks.

A lack of empathy for customers is a common problem and it’s usually caused by a disproportionate amount of attention being focused on internal policies, procedures or needs, when most of that focus should be on the needs of the customer.

A lack of empathy leads to customer transactions littered with phrases like: “That’s just the way it is”, “We can’t do that”, “It’s more than my job’s worth”, “It’s against the rules” etc.

In order to be more empathetic to our customers, there’s one skill we need to learn and practice – conversation. Asking the right questions in the right way, can provide us with lots of useful information that means that we are better prepared to understand our customers’ needs and meet them.

In the case of the interior design shop I visited, a couple of simple questions like: “Have you come far?” “What are you looking for today?”

Given that’d I’d been in several times before buying paint, she might even have said something like: “We’ve seen quite a lot of you recently. You must have quite a lot of decorating on?” This would naturally have led onto a conversation from which she could have discovered that I’d recently moved house and was in the process of working through it room by room – useful information for her to have.

Let me conclude with a positive example of empathy in practice. I recently visited Café Nero in Barnstaple, where I asked if they had any of the fruit and seed bars available. The Barista checked but she didn’t: “I’m sorry but we’ve only got frozen ones”, she said.

“They might be a bit hard”, I responded, smiling. “Then, as an after thought I asked: “I don’t suppose you can toast them from frozen”.

The Barista thought for a moment and after checking with a colleague said: “Well, they’re bread, so I don’t see why not. I’ll bring you one over when it’s done.”

Now I felt guilty about all the extra trouble I was putting her to. “Oh, don’t worry I said. I could just have a muffin. I’m sure that’ll be a lot less trouble for you.”

“Maybe”, she responded smiling warmly. “But you’d really like a toasted fruit and seed bar wouldn’t you?”

I left the café smiling from ear to ear because the friendly service I’d received. It required very little extra effort on the part of the Barista who’d served me really; just a little empathy.

Rod Webb
www.glasstap.com