Equine Assisted Teambuilding & Leadership for Organizations
Equine Assisted Teambuilding & Leadership for Organizations
In today’s world, leaders and organizations face multiple challenges and can no longer rely upon traditional formulas to be successful. Our interactive experiential leadership and team development programs are designed to strengthen the social and emotional intelligence needed for leaders and team members to be more effective, self-aware, and accountable.
Unlike other experiential programs, such as ropes courses and survival adventures, we provide opportunities that go beyond overcoming fear and bonding under stress to engage participants in deep levels of awareness and communication to create lasting results.
We offer workshops, retreats, and private sessions that utilize hands-on experience with horses to create organizational success.
Change in the arena translates into change at the office.
At Stand InBalance, we combine our knowledge of human behavior and organizational principles with our understanding of equines to facilitate human learning and development. Our cutting-edge, experiential programs use the unique abilities of horses and their natural herd dynamics to take leaders and teams to the next level.
Through involvement in carefully devised activities, individuals and teams learn about themselves as they experience and see their strengths and challenges from a new perspective. Using skilled facilitation, we help participants illuminate issues they may have denied or resisted and work with them so they can develop more effective behaviors and leverage their strengths.
We offer a fast-track to change – one you’ll never see happen in a typical meeting setting.
Outcomes and results of Equine Assisted Learning include:
- Stronger Leadership & Improved Teamwork
- Amplified Productivity
- Increased Emotional Intelligence
- Effective Communication & Listening
- Boost Trust & Commitment
- Enhanced Relational Skills & Ability to Positively Influence Others
- Greater Creativity in Problem Solving
- Elevated Morale & Accountability
Interaction with horses provides powerful learning experiences because the interactive experience changes and evolves — just like the workplace it is a changing environment. And, have we mentioned how being in a beautiful, mountain setting with colleagues for a day can literally change team dynamics?
Stand InBalance can help your organization:
- Increase Results and Efficiency
- Minimize Employee Turnover
- Reduce Miscommunication
- Propel Profitability
Workplace Assessments
In conjunction with our off-site retreats, we offer assessments that set us apart from your average corporate retreat experience. We assess team strengths and dysfunctions, and facilitate 360° feedback. Learn about the motives underlying your team members’ behavior under stress and stop getting derailed by conflict.
» Click here for more information on our leadership development programs, and team assessment using the Strengths Deployment Inventory.
What does our organization need to know?
After an initial consultation to assess your needs, our professionals will recommend one of the following options, or a customized program, to meet your organizations greatest challenges:
- Group Strengths: Leveraging the Individual
- Creativity: From Stuck to Out of the Box
- Maximize Productivity, Minimize Distractions
- From Tension to Collaboration
- Influence and Impact through Inspired Leadership
EAL is a cutting-edge experiential form of learning that uses the unique abilities of horses and their natural herd dynamics to take leaders and teams to the next level.
- This is not horseback riding and the focus is not on developing horsemanship skills. Participants interact with horses through structured activities. No horse experience is necessary and those with horse experience are equally challenged because “this is not about the horse.”
- Experiential, goal-oriented activities are utilized to target beliefs, habits, and behavioral responses. These are examined during activity processing so participants can gain greater personal insight about themselves and how they interact as a group to accomplish goals.
- During workshops/retreats, an environment of non-judgment and self-acceptance is created. There’s no right or wrong way of doing the activities. Rather, it is about the experience and each person / team accomplishing goals in their own way. This is the pillar of our program.
- Our facilitators help participants bring this direct experience, immediate feedback, and metaphorical learning together to maximize change and learning.
As prey animals, equines instinctively have a keen awareness of and sensitivity to their surroundings. Their heightened recognition of, and ability to interpret, the body language and emotions of other beings not only makes them successful herd animals but enables them to be powerful messengers that mirror back their direct experience of us humans. And, they do so without the judgment or biases typically associated with human beings. They can’t be bullied into partnership and they are never too polite to tell you how they really feel! They give immediate, honest feedback about our interpersonal skills and how clear, confident, aware, congruent, and trustworthy we are.
Just like us, they have complex social dynamics that utilize teamwork, cooperation, and loyalty. Horses show participants what effective leadership and teamwork is and what it is not. The interaction with horses and the direct and honest feedback they provide moves participants outside of their comfort zone and reduces defensiveness so that new learning and change can occur.
A typical workshop or retreat involves ground activities with the horses that provide opportunities for executive leadership development and/or team building. Our professionals help participants explore their interactions with the horses and the metaphors that emerge for application in the workplace.
“The team building experience my group experienced at Stand InBalance was extremely well organized and facilitated. The connections made between our work with the horses and our work experience back in the office were very insightful and geared towards action we can take back to the workplace.”
~ Liz, Account Manager
LEADERS INBALANCE
Are you ready to step-up your leadership?
What makes an effective leader?
In order to successfully lead others, we must first be able to effectively lead ourselves. Remarkable leaders are able to recognize and modulate their emotional states while remaining open, responsive, and aware of others. They are inspirational, inclusive, credible, compelling and authentic. Powerful leaders effectively influence others through respect and trust.
Advanced leadership is Embodied Leadership and develops through cultivating a style that is clear, congruent, confident, and connected to self and others. It is a place from which we can “Stand In Balance” and respond to stressful circumstances with wisdom, flexibility, creativity and compassion.
How horses teach leaders
Our experiential learning programs are designed to strengthen the social and emotional intelligence that leaders of all types need to be more effective and self-aware.
Horses are excellent teachers of embodied leadership. Instinctively, they are powerful messengers that mirror back their direct experience of humans, without judgment or bias. Simply put, the learning is in the doing. Horses look for fully-integrated leadership and give direct, honest and immediate feedback about what effective leadership is, and what it is not. Like humans, equines want clear and intentional communication.
Our carefully devised equine activities provide an opportunity for participants to experience and see their challenges from a new perspective, illuminating areas for growth and gaining tools to create change. Through discussion, our facilitators help participants bring this direct experience, immediate feedback, and metaphorical learning together to create change in the workplace. Our Embodied Leadership Development Programs facilitate:
- More skillful verbal and non-verbal communication
- Greater awareness of subtle cues in yourself and others
- Improved ability to influence and impact others
- Building relationships through trust
- Leadership agility
Participants have an opportunity to:
- Maximize positive impact and influence
- Cultivate a strong, inspiring presence
- Enhance relational skills
- Build confidence
- Promote trust and commitment
- Boost creativity
- Develop effective communication and listening skills
What if I don’t ride?
At Stand InBalance, all exercises are conducted on the ground (no riding) and no prior horse experience is necessary. While changes can occur in just one Equine Assisted Learning session, cumulative experiences maximize growth and learning – leading to exponential results.
“I learned so much from the leadership workshop that I will apply to my life! Being more confident, owning my space, acknowledging successes, how to be better aware of and manage my own energy output. I encourage others to do it! There were so many lessons and insights that I didn’t expect or anticipate!”
~ Brianne, Construction Project Manager