Reflecting on my experiences to date recently I recalled an event that changed my life.
A few years ago I was fortunate to be invited to be part of the Kaizen Training consultant team and was participating in their awesome year long black belt programme of personal development.
Part of the programme involved travelling to a farm ( can’t remember where) where we were to spend the day working with horses while being coached by Andrew McFarlane and his outstanding team of coaches from LeadChange.
Before I say any more I should point out that my experience with horses had, to that point, not been great. At the age of 17 I was put on one by my then girl friend. The horse clearly sensed my naiveté and took off down the road, from my perspective, for a laugh at my expense. Since then I have regarded them with suspicion. No steering, no brakes, inappropriate seating arrangements, and a sense of humour bordering on the vindictive.
However here I was, being allocated a horse and told to “just go for a little walk together.” There were no reins, no saddle; just me and a naked horse. Suffice to say the horse wouldn’t budge.
After about 10 minutes of futile badgering on my part and complete indifference on the horse’s part, my coach asked me what I was doing.
Me: “I am trying to get this horse to come with me”
Coach: “Why are you doing that?”
Me: “Because you told me to take it for a walk but it won’t come.”
Coach: “No I didn’t. I asked you to go for a walk with the horse. I didn’t ask you to make it do anything.”
At this point I got the first glimmerings of a light bulb moment of such intensity that I felt complete overcome.
After some more coaching I came to realise that I spent a lot of my life trying to get people to do things. This included trying to manipulate how they felt about me, trying to make people like me, trying to get people to think of me in a particular way, I would even plan it. I became aware that I would often spend time before a meeting deciding what kind of person I wanted the others to think of me as. Am I going to be fun today or Mr Serious……?
In simple terms I was a subconscious controller. And it was making me tired and miserable and, as the horse elegantly demonstrated, not someone people wanted to walk with.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Because I think we tend to forget that the world is full of great learning opportunities; not just for us but for those we train. There is the awesome power of metaphor, the use of silence and reflection, and many others.
It would be virtually impossible to recreate the level of insight and learning I found with the horses in any other way.
So my thoughts today are around fundamentally challenging ourselves to find ways to allow our learners to experience powerful insights without using the usual methods.
If you are up for a challenge try this:
- Tell us how you would run a presentation skills workshop for nervous presenters without a training room and without your normal resources (pens, paper, flips, post-its, trainers kit….).
- Lets get creative and imagine you can go anywhere in the world and use any resource (other than your normal kit.)
Your outcome for the session is:
“At the end of this session my learners will be able to present to any size group while being in complete emotional control”
So – over to you…………
Ps: This is how the horse session ended –
Coach: “Why don’t you and your horse negotiate together and agree what you are going to do.”
So we did. We stood together head to head, side by side for I-don’t-know-how-long but there came a point when I just felt a step forward would be ok.
Just as I started to lift my foot the horse took a step too and we then walked around the entire barn, side by side, together, no-one in charge, no-one leading, just me and the horse taking a walk.
And the way I view myself and those around me has never been the same.
Image used with permission: tomdanvers
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7 Comments
What a fabulous story, really made me think about how I approach the people I’m pulling around (sometimes unhappily) after me in a training event.
My next challenge is to stand quietly with senior managers (who often get involved in the content of learning) until we can take the first step forward together
Thank you for your comment Annabel. By introducing your thinking around senior managers you have stretched the metaphor further than I did. Brilliant!
Its a complete eye-opener, Paul…..never realised that trainers can be subconscious controllers. I can so relate to it!
Trainers can easily inculcate the fear of failiure in their trainees instead of killing it.
Sometimes, we should just walk with them, instead of always leading the way…..I think it will help the trainees to be at ease and they will be more open towards learning.
Thanks, Paul!
Your realisation about us being sub-consious controllers got me thinking about a couple of conversations I’ve had recently with trainers new to brain friendly learning and accelerated learning.
In both instances the biggest impact for them was the move from ‘expert at the front dispensing knowledge’ to being a guide and facilitator helping people ‘understand’. There is lots about control in this movement.
I think that Pauls personal experience with the horse indicates that there are deeper levels that we can still find ways of retaining control. As more experienced facilitators, it’s good to be reminded of these more subtle ways the ‘control freak’ in most of us escapes.
I for one find it hard…
Mr Wright, I remember the first time you shared this story with me and the impact it had on us both (I do believe we were eating some form of Cajun Chicken at the time in a lovely hotel in Perth, Scotland – you know me, always thinking of my stomach!!!!!).
It’s a great learning story and one that provides me with lots of reflection including:
1. How meaningful metaphors can be for learning
2. The often unspoken truth behind our need as facilitators to be in control (I believe our intention is always good, but sometimes we need to bring our need for control to the forefront so we can remove it and let learners learn for themselves)…
but most importantly for me…
3. How powerful and memorable learning can be when you step right out of your comfort zone, look at it from a different angle and attach it to a strong emotion… this story is real proof of those three brain friendly learning principles!!
Thank you for sharing Paul. x
Thank you for the comments. It is fascinating that such a personal story can resonate with different people from different cultures across thousands of miles and still generate powerful insights. Someone should really write a posting about the awesome potential of a good story………….. anyone?
Probably not me
One of my development areas is to tell less stories and focus on the outcomes more!
I’d back up Paul’s request and encourgage you to contribute to the blog. If you have any insights on story telling or want to share a personal experience of how a story has really helped your learners get it, then please contact us, we’d love to publish your thoughts here.