FORGET WHAT YOU KNOW
ABOUT TEAM BUILDING
Equine Assisted Team Development is about growing trust between people. Without trust we cannot be a team. Using our Lusitano horses as guides you will meet a team member like you have never had before. Someone who doesn't care what your title is or which car you drive. Someone who has zero respect for your jobdescription or yearlong education. He only cares about how you make him feel.
The basics
We use horses to assist us in developing the team based on the fundamental fact that a horse cannot lie. He can only be honest and when interacting with humand a horse will "mirror" what he feels from us and what he senses. Horses are highly developed when it comes to switching through the levels of the autonomous nervous system, which basically means they can switch between "stressed" and "relaxed" in seconds. Something humans are no longer as finely attuned to master.
So we work with horses because they teach us how well we control ourselves, and what we send out - they show us in an honest and pure response what they "pick up" from our conscious and unconscious behavior. Emotionally and in response to our autonomous nervous system,
All mammals search for safety, a feeling of belonging and being "part of a team". The key in this work, is that horses puts relationsships above all else. The herd is their most important tool to survive. So they want to follow us, they want yo be with us humans, as long as we make them feel "part of the team (the herd). That is why we can learn from them. They have the capacity to give us a non-judgemental evaluation, that is full of encouragement, foregiveness and love.
If you can make a horse follow you voluntarily because of the way you make him feel, you can do anything you want in this world. Most importantly, you can be the best friend to yourself and the best friend and team member to those around you. Be it family or collegues.
COMMUNICATION
The base for both trust and feel can be strengthened and weakened by how we communicate. We highly depend on verbal communication between humans, and in a fast corporate world non-verbal communication is almost non-existent. However it's also 93% of what makes us trust and feel good - or bad - in a team. That is why we teach you to se eye to eye. Literally speaking. We are what we feel and that is the foundation we can develop.
FEELING SAFE
How we feel in a team is based on emotions and trust. If we trust we feel safe. When we feel safe we dare to open ourselves and when we open up for whats inside, innovation, creativity and enthusiasm has a space. If we are seen and heard we feel respected for who we are and that in return allows for more trust. The stronger that bond is the further we dare to move and challenge ourselves and our team to excell.
TRUST
Trust is the foundation of any good relationship. However earning and growing trust in a team requires more than simply showing up at the office everyday and the casual friday or Christmas party. It grows out of sharing emotional experiences where we have to give a bit of who we are to the other one in order to make something happen. Trust is about feeling safe, and feeling safe is based on a attuned communication.
Beginning with our Foundation Workshop we teach your team to trust, feel safe and communicate honestly in a way that grows trust and the work challenges many but emotionally moves all.
We make way for psycological safety to be a welcome help to accomplish the exercises we work through. Changing the way we can communicate into every thing it normally is not, and being creative in a speechless way, we allow the horse to take center stage and test the skills learned.
In return he mirrors the team efforts and allows me to interpret his responses about the group dynamics. Framed in a setting where the Equine Group Dynamics are always at play, we take the entire team to a new level where strenghtening the Team is no longer about who climbed the highest wall or ran faster, but who contributed more to the succes of the entire team.
The outcome is a team with increased awareness about the entire team and all members, trust between eachother, and a clear understanding that the strongest team is the one that keep eachother safe and thriving.
After this program is complete we can "Step it Up" with our Level 2 workshop. We will dive further into human interactions, our atunomous nervous system and how we can create safety and space to thrive, as well as a growth plate for innovation. The human mind can only be creative in a safe space, and with a relaxed autonomous nervous system. Horses are able to teach us how to switch between our unconscious reasponses and grow stroger as individuals and as teams.
The workshops we have been through have helped us implement changes that not only made everyone more present, but also more effecient and aware.
These workshops are the best our Company havde invested in.
JO VERSTAPPEN
CEO OPEN LINE
"Nadjas words were not the easy and usual one-liners, but linking in a very precise, concrete and lived-through manner, what was happening to us in our business lives, and interaction with others in general, with what needed change.
At age 59 I had not expected to get such a new experience."
MICHAEL
OPEN LINE
Foundation Workshop
This is your first program to go through and where the fundamental elements are introduced. Your team will never be the same after this program.
4 -6 hour Workshop
Step it Up Workshop
When you complete the Foundation Workshop and want to build on what you learned and grow your team further, this program takes the challenges to the next step and allows for the skills and techniques to strenghten even more.
4 hour workshop
The Equine Coach
Because the Lusitano horses we work with are able to assist in so many ways, this is a tailormade program. We can addapt it to individuals and teams, base it on developing personal skils or target specific team challenges and grow new skills for.
Individual session durations
Let's work together!
The programs have a frame that allows us to adapt our programs around your team and specific challenges, wants or needs. In working with live animals we get unexpected input that can take us further than planned and as a whole your team and me and my team of horses will finish on a note that leaves none of us indefifferent.
Our workshops at standard suits maximum 12 people.
For larger groups please inquire as we can make almost anything happen.
Get in Touch
Do you want to know more? Need a special program for your team?
Give me a call and let's make it happen.
You can also send all questions and inquieries straight to my inbox: