Nature has powerful lessons to teach us as leaders. This natural wisdom is timely now, not least of which because it is something that we all have in common. Furthermore, the resilience of natural systems is undeniable, amid great upheaval and challenge. Finally, we would do well to steward our natural resources better.
Specifically, horses are one of the most successful species on our planet. They are in the 1% of surviving creatures since the formation of Earth. The culture that has enabled this survival offers powerful insights about teamwork. And interacting with horses offers myriad lessons about leadership and collaboration.
Antonello Radicchi is a world-renowned horse trainer. His training is based on a deep study of communication between horses and people. Thanks to this study and his partnership with Count Antonio Bolza and the Reschio Stables in Umbria, he has produced some of the most responsive and versatile dressage animals in the world. [For the riders among you, you’ll appreciate the fact that he does all this using a bit-less headpiece, essentially just a halter.]
These successes rely on communicating with the horses to get them to do difficult things. A mandate that is very akin to that of modern leaders. Radicchi’s non-coercive approach looks a lot like the empathetic and collaborative leadership that is called for in today’s hybrid, fast-changing, and competitive business landscape. A closer look at his style offers specific tools that we can use to improve our communication as leaders, and ultimately our teams’ performance.
Antonello Radicchi has developed an empathetic and non-coercive training system with great success.
With Tact
Radicchi's book describes his powerful approach to training in great detail.
The essential building block of Radicchi’s method is contact. He breaks the word down into its Latin (and modern Italian) roots: with touch. Before we can even attempt to communicate with another being – whether equine or human – we must establish contact. He defines this connection as “the essence of feeling, of knowing, and of understanding,” in his book, Do You Speak Equis.
He reassures that we all have the ability to create this deep, multisensorial connection to others. But that we often allow the busy-ness of modern life, and complexity of relationships to obscure this deep, non-verbal connection. Radicchi cautions: “If there is no contact, there is no communication and without communication there is no rapport.”
Developing our innate ability to create contact with those around us is a learning process. We will make mistakes along the way. The important thing is to recognize our mistakes so we can progress toward a closer relationship, based on respect.
All of these insights come from Radicchi’s decades of work with horses. But there’s no question that they apply to our work as leaders. Before we worry about managing difficult conversations, delivering feedback, or inspiring our teams, we better create contact. And that contact should be characterized by closeness and respect.
Add Energy
Radicchi describes energy as ‘the primary requirement’ when it comes to training horses. As prey animals, horses conserve their energy at all costs. In other words, they avoid any movement that isn’t required to alleviate discomfort or escape a predator. Thanks to the physical force of inertia, humans aren’t that different.
The Reschio herd demonstrates the successful culture of leadership and collaboration that has made ... [+]
Nothing gets done by a team that doesn’t have energy for the work. And these days, burnout is so widespread that wise managers think a lot about managing their team’s energy. Successful energy management efforts go far beyond wellness perks. Like at Radicchi’s stable, it’s about doing what we can to ensure our people have the right nutrition, rest, equipment, and support from ourselves and their peers.
Once you’re sure that you have healthy contact with your team, there’s one more important ingredient before communicating what you need them to do. Ensure that they have the energy required for the work. Energy management is a worthy topic in and of itself. In extreme brevity, leaders who manage their team’s energy in today’s professional context ensure a few basic provisions:
- pay and benefits that enable employees to provide for their own and their family’s basic needs;
- a culture of trust and flexibility so employees can manage their commitments and priorities, within and beyond their role at work;
- clear responsibilities that align with employees’ skills and interests; and
- regular feedback demonstrating how they, as people, and their work matter to the team and the organization’s stakeholders.
Communicate Clearly
Once you have established at least a starting point in terms of contact and energy, you can begin asking your team to perform. Radicchi teaches his students the ‘grammar’ of the horse’s language. We presumably speak the same language as our employees. But differences in our position in the organization, to say nothing of our divergent backgrounds, call on us to ensure that we’re speaking in terms that make sense to them.
People are of course, not animals. We have more elaborate frontal cortexes that add to our ability to plan, remember past feelings and experiences, and project others’ feelings. Nonetheless, Radicchi’s insistence that we be clear and predictable with our instructions is a helpful reminder when leading a team or collaborating. Particularly in today’s hybrid, chaotic, and competitive workplace.
Radicchi demonstrates, with a simple bit-less headpiece, the art of collaboration, based on contact ... [+]
When a direction (or strategy) is not understood, it’s important to have a complete and empathetic view of why it was not grasped by your audience. Radicchi encourages his students to carefully examine the horse’s response to their request. This analysis will review elements of own behavior, the horse’s make-up and position, as well as the context around us all that might have prevented the desired response.
Further, he emphasizes that there’s no such thing as a ‘non-response’ to a request. Not doing anything is indeed a response as much as doing something other than the desired action. By analyzing the horse’s position, we can try to understand their reasoning for this form of communication. And only then can we try again to achieve true collaboration.
We would do well as leaders to follow this approach. If our teams aren’t performing the way we’d like, it’s on us to understand what isn’t clear to them. We must find a different way to explain our desired outcome, in a way that is comprehensible and motivating to them.
Recognize Intent
Finally, one of Radicchi’s most powerful – and most challenging - lessons is to recognize and reward the very intent to comply with your request. This requires that initial building block of contact to be extremely well-established. The trainer must be so connected to the horse that they feel the shift when the horse understands the request and intends to do it. Early in their training, horses don’t know how to do the high-level maneuvers that Radicchi and his proteges are asking for. To avoid discouragement and frustration, they must be rewarded for the courage and energy expended to try.
Similarly, in a fast-changing business context, we have to recognize our team’s mere willingness to keep up with our shifting needs. They are constantly having to learn new ways of working, as are we as leaders. This can be exhausting. But it can also be extremely engaging and rewarding – if the learning is supported by close and respectful contact with a motivating leader.
Be sure that you’re recognizing your team’s intent to make the changes and perform in the way your business needs. It’ll generate the energy we all need to navigate these challenging times.
This is the first of three articles sharing lessons from training, riding, and simply being with horses that have inspired breakthroughs and insights for leaders. These lessons apply to our own performance, our teams’ operations and management, and the ways our organizations serve the communities around them. Stay tuned for the next two this week. And in the meantime, next time you see a horse, whether on television, in a memory, while vacation planning, or on your next drive, look a little closer to see what you might learn.
Email me for a tool to start evaluating your leadership habits and making them more purposeful. Or click here to watch Radicchi’s training in action at Castello di Reschio.
