Applying horse sense to improve the way bosses communicate with staff

Sarah Kreutzer, whose work with horses with behavioural problems has been featured by the BBC, ITV and Channel 5, has applied the techniques she uses to overcome problems in animals to tackle some of the issues currently preventing businesses achieve optimum output and growth.

“Businesses are facing challenges they have never had to deal with before with many rebuilding teams and structures following major organisational change,” said Ms Kreutzer, a former pupil of renowned US horse whisperer Monty Roberts.

Her corporate training venture, Learning To Listen, based near Masham, in North Yorkshire, has already coached teams and leaders from the NHS and big-name firms including G4S, Warburtons, Action Coach and London-based recruitment company Addison Fowle.

Her mission is to engage business leaders to adopt a more holistic approach to people management.

“Recession has led to a great deal of fear,” said Ms Kreutzer. “When people have been faced with redundancy and pay cuts, the relentless pursuit of promotions and pay rises becomes less relevant, and this has a major impact on a person’s priorities.”

She helps leaders understand how to motivate their teams post-recession and believes her techniques are particularly effective in organisations whose board members and senior management are hungry for a shift in ethos as well as a boost to productivity.

“Most employees are giving just a third of what they’re capable of, so by creating an environment for success and learning how to engage their staff effectively, managers can dramatically improve performance,” she said.

One of her biggest projects involved the entire staff of a failing Middlesbrough school, taking half-a-dozen people at a time through her programme in Masham and making regular return visits to the school to observe them at work.

“The process took almost three months and involved everyone from the cleaners to the deputy head. It led to significant changes in working practice and improvements in all relationships, staff and pupils,” she said. The school is now out of special measures.

Ms Kreutzer’s leadership and management training techniques may have been developed on the farm but they have proved transferable to other environments.

“I have run in-house team-building days and coaching sessions, without the horses, using the same techniques to achieve results and deliver seminars to demonstrate the work we do at Learning To Listen.”

However, she believes contact with horses offers a perfect example of engagement in practice.

“A horse will give you its full attention while you are engaged with it but as soon as your concentration drifts, it will start to move away from you. Working closely with them and experiencing how they mirror your personality traits and react to your behaviour is a powerful exercise in self-awareness.”

To book a free taster session, email [email protected] or call 01423 548195.