"This story originally ran in the Fall 2000 issue of Rural Living, a publication of Michigan Farm Bureau."

Lessons in corporate relations: Try a little horse sense

by Paul W. Jackson

Nevada Rose was typical of the type of employee that frustrates the daylights out of employers. Relocated from her home due to circumstances beyond her control, she was shy around people, wildly independent and unwilling to trust anyone. She also was strong and fit with obvious and incredible potential.

A heavy-handed management approach would have made her respond, sure, said Tom Mapes, an empowerment coach at Midland's Dow Chemical Corp. But her response would have been negative, and odds would be good that no one ever would get a saddle on her.

In the year-and-a-half since Mapes adopted Nevada Rose through the federal Bureau of Land Management's Mustang Adoption program, she's become more trusting, allows Tom and wife Cindy to touch her - almost at will - and has won best of show in halter class in a horse show. Also, she's become a metaphor for how people in the corporate world respond, not to the whip, but to gentle and confident leadership.

"If you gain their trust, they'll follow you," says Mapes, referring to both horses and people.

Mapes discovered the correlation between the two species in a round-about way, he said. Having raised and trained horses for years with Cindy, Mapes was watching television one night when a story about horse trainer Monty Roberts came on. The Californian on TV showed a unique training method based on a gentle approach, and Mapes said he wondered aloud if the method would work on apparently untrainable mustangs that had, just a few weeks earlier, been running loose in the parched wilds of Nevada, Montana and other western states.

"A lot of people have grown up with the idea that to train a horse, you have to hurt it before it hurts you," Mapes said. "But we learned that if you make a horse or a worker understand what the goal is, you can let them figure out how to get there."

Mapes said Nevada Rose surprised everyone around her when, after Mapes began using Roberts's methods, it took only a half-hour before he was leading her down the driveway. His boss at Dow wondered if Mapes could tailor the method to people, and Mapes agreed to do a four-hour conference for Dow's maintenance department.

One of the first things Mapes said he heard from the group was that its leaders had been trying for some time to direct people into empowerment teams.

"Monty said that he'd never been able to direct anyone without resistance," Mapes said. "He'd always had better luck having people follow."

The same is true of horses, he said. When an untrusting horse is pushed into a corner and punished for not responding properly, it learns to resist the punishment - and the trainer. But when it's rewarded for a correct response, it learns the behavior the trainer wants.

First, however, trust must be evident, and that requires patience, whether in the corral or the corporate setting.

"When the heavy-handed approach takes away a person's right to fail, it also takes away the chance to succeed," Mapes said. "Ninety percent of today's corporate leaders tend to view their employees like kids. They don't like to see them fail. It's hard, but with the right training, they're always more willing to try.

In the corral, there are obvious signs that the horse begins to trust, Mapes said. The training method begins with letting the animal run in one direction around a circular corral. No cornering, no confrontation. Eventually, the trainer can let the horse run the opposite direction for a time, letting it know it has two ways of escape. But soon, Mapes said, you'll begin to see signs of trust. The horse's inner ear (the one closest to the trainer) will consistently be turned to the trainer. Next, it will drop its head, followed by licking and chewing. When you see that, Mapes said, it means you have its attention, and trust is building. It's important at that point, he said, to remove any pressure from the horse.

"If you back away and the horse turns to face you, it means she's saying 'let's renegotiate," Mapes said. "Then you can walk slowly up to the animal on an angle, and make contact."

In the workplace, as in the corral, a system of rewards must be set up, Mapes said. His horses don't get treats. Simple praise does the trick.

"The only reward is a pat on the head," he said. "That's positive reinforcement. If she fails, the only negative reinforcement is putting her back to work."

In the workplace, where leaders want workers to make decisions without fear of punishment, the method is a natural, Mapes said. The wrong decision means more work needs to be done, which is punishment enough. The worker knows that, and doesn't need to be reminded of it. But the right decision deserves a reward, even if it's as simple as a well-timed word of encouragement.

"If you gain their trust, they'll follow you," Mapes said. "Once that message got through in the seminar we had, for the first time in two years people started talking about the real issues they had to tackle."

Analytical types of workers, Mapes said, tend most to resist the whole idea at first, which only means that they need a different training method, because people learn in different ways, he said.

While Mapes said he's learned plenty about people from training mustangs with Roberts' method, he's also learned a great deal about horses from the experience. "A wild horse teaches you so much more about what a horse is than a domestic horse," he said. "These mustangs are more attentive to things around them, like a deer walking through the woods, and they're very herd instinctive, which is different from a person. With people, isolation can be a reward. To isolate a horse is the kiss of death." While Mapes said he would not encourage a novice horse owner to adopt a mustang, it's been immensely rewarding to him and Cindy. The people at Dow have also been rewarded, and crave more. Mapes said he's already been asked to give more presentations at his place, giving people lessons they might only learn from a horse.

E-Mails:

October 1, 2001

Debbie, We would be proud to have you use Nevada Rose on your web site. This horse has touched many peoples lives in and around Midland, Michigan. She is an excellent example of what resistance free training can accomplish. I worked with Monty Roberts, and used his Join-up Methods in starting her. For the first six months we had her we could not even touch her. Then one afternoon she join-up with me. Two weeks to the day I showed her for the first time in a open horse show in halter class. It has been an experience every since. At the time we started showing I had a Manager at work who challenged me to apply what I had learned working with her to people. This has lead from being an Electrician to working entirely with people as an Empowerment Coach. I have used her to help train other Coaches and Managers on using the same methods for working with peoples behaviors. I guess you could say we adopted her to help improve her life, and in return she has improved ours.

Since adopting Nevada (I'm sure you know of a lot horses named Nevada) We have adopted three other Mustangs with the same results. We also belong in and are active in The Great Lakes Mustang Association and would appreciate it if you would mention them.

October 1, 2001

Kathy, Thought you might like to see these pictures of Nevada Rose. They where taken last weekend September 22 and 23, 2001 at a DARE trail ride near Port Huron, Michigan. It was sponsored by the Michigan State Police to raise money for the DARE program. This was Nevada's first trail ride, and she did outstanding. We rode 15 miles with 200 other horses. It was quite a site to see. We will be having a BLM adoption in Midland in two weeks, hopefully we will have some choice Nevada horses for people to get.

Best,

Tom & Cindy