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Unleash Your Team’s Potential with Equine-Powered Team Building
Forge stronger bonds, boost productivity, and ignite fresh inspiration with our uniquely transformative workshops and inspirational speech—featuring our specially trained horses as both partners and teachers.
Whether you choose the hands-on workshop, the motivational lecture, or the full combination, your team will leave energized, connected, and ready to tackle new challenges together.
TEAM SPIRIT
“We needed to bring a new team together and chose the Founding Herd Workshop because we wanted to go out of the box and get an efficient, positive change to our team spirit. It did not disappoint! Our group of people became closer, stronger and overall felt safer together”
Ane Mette Lysbech-Kleis
- Vattenfall
Founding Herd Workshops
Why Horses? The Power of the Herd Metaphor
Horses are herd animals by nature. In the wild, every member—no matter how big or small—contributes to the herd’s safety, morale, and success. Through carefully designed exercises, participants will experience firsthand how:
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Even the “weakest” strengthen the whole; Thinking of everyone as equally important provides a fresh perspective and fosters collective vigilance.
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Collaboration transcends hierarchy: When trust is at the core, direction can flow from any individual, and in all directions.
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Non-verbal communication matters: Horses mirror our emotions, prompting teams to become more mindful of tone, body language, and intention.
By stepping into the world of the herd, your team gains a living metaphor for unity, trust, and shared purpose.
The Workshop Experience
Our half-day or full-day workshops blend structured activities with free-form herd interaction. Each segment is led by an experienced facilitator who guides both horses and humans through exercises that build connection and reveal leadership insights:
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Herd Introduction & Icebreaker
• Meet the horses in a relaxed paddock setting
• Learn equine body language basics
• Quick trust-building games: pairing participants to mirror each other’s posture and pace -
Collaborative Challenges
• “Lead the Leader”: Teams take turns guiding the horse through cones—discovering that true leadership listens as much as it directs.
• “Circle of Trust”: Participants stand in a circle, horse inside; together they calm and cue the animal to move, reinforcing that shared focus achieves more than solo effort. -
Individual Reflection & Group Debrief
• Personal insights captured via short written prompts: “When did I feel heard?” “How did I impact the herd?”
• Group discussion uncovers patterns of communication, hidden strengths, and areas for improvement. -
Closing Ritual: The Herd Pledge
• Teams craft a unifying statement—an “Equine Accord”—promising to support one another, modeled after herd loyalty.
• A final circle with horses present, sealing commitment to new behaviors and mindsets.
Throughout, we weave rhetorical metaphors—from “passing the lead rope” as a symbol of responsibility, to “bridling our anxieties” as a way to release stress. These vivid images stick long after the day is done.
GAME CHANGER
“We have changed the way we organize our meetings, and the way we work together. The workshops give us fundamental knowledge about the teams, that have already increased our efficiency but more importantly made our team happier and more connected"
Jo Verstappen
- CEO Open Line NL
Founding herd Workshops
Ready to meet the horses?
Give your Team an experience of a lifetime
Before each workshop we adapt certain elements to what the team needs. Get in touch and tell me about your team, and I will make the workshop work towards your goals for your team. It's not magic, or complicated. It's just a matter of energy and intention. Feel welcome to get in touch no strings attached. I know it sounds a bit strange and "out there" but I promise it works. Catch me by phone or email and I'll be thrilled to tell you more about what our programme can do for you.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Inspirational Speech: “Born to Belong”
Complementing the workshop, our 1.5-hour keynote dives deep into the human need for connection, drawing parallels between herd instinct and modern teamwork:
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Why we crave the herd: The neuroscience of belonging, cortisol reduction, and creative flow.
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How to cultivate herd-mind: Simple daily habits—“herd huddles,” reflective pauses, collective goal-setting.
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My personal journey: Facing mental-health challenges, I found strength and purpose through equine therapy. By embracing vulnerability, I learned that sharing struggles is the first step to collective growth.
Delivering warmth, humor, and hard-won wisdom, this talk leaves audiences motivated to weave new patterns of trust and mutual support into their workplace culture.
Tangible Benefits for Your Organization
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Strengthened Team Spirit: Shared, memorable experiences create an emotional bond far beyond the conference room.
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Enhanced Communication: Participants return with heightened awareness of nonverbal cues and active-listening skills.
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Improved Efficiency: Clearer roles, mutual accountability, and the courage to ask for help translate into faster, smoother workflows.
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Boosted Mental Well-being: Time with horses lowers stress, sparks joy, and strengthens resilience.
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Lasting Motivation & Inspiration: The vivid herd metaphors become touchstones for ongoing collaboration and innovation.
Whether onboarding a brand-new team or reigniting long-standing colleagues, our equine-centered approach lifts groups to new heights.
Choose Your Path: Workshop, Speech, or Both
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Workshop Only
Hands-on, interactive, and deeply experiential—for teams who learn by doing and want to practice new behaviors together. -
Inspirational Speech Only
Ideal for large gatherings or hybrid settings—delivered on-site or via livestream, with powerful takeaways that resonate immediately. -
Combined Program
The ultimate leadership investment: an energizing speech to prime the mind, followed by a full or half-day workshop to cement insights through action.
Each option is fully customizable in length, group size, and focus areas. We handle all logistics—from safe, natural-stable environments to certified equine-facilitators and pre-work materials—so you can focus on the transformation.
Module 2: Team Leader Impact
Team Leader Training
Open up to the power of your personal Mind Body Intention profile that will be completed with Equine Guidance.
Take your personal presence and impact to a new level through this practical workshop where we focus on the Team leadership. Learn to balance your leadership so you make the most selfcarrying team. You will learn and understand how you can motivate and mobillise your team, and how and when you need to step in - and especially step out again in the most optimal way.
This module is useful for new team leaders and as developing and further educating existing Team Leaders. Level of intensity can be individually adapted to specifik needs and intent.
Module 3: MBIB Ambassador
Safespace 360 Training
Strengthen your organisation with Mind Body Intentional Balance Ambassadors. This module is created with The Polyvagal Equine Institute and is designed to help your organisation become a safe workspace.
Ambassadors are taught how to recognise imbalance and inconsistencies in the wellbeing of collegues. We use the horses to show and tell how the autonomous nervous system, designed to help us survive as hunter-gathers long ago, comes into action, and understand the whole person.
MBIB Ambassadors will know how to approach and assist in a caring matter, help regulate and balance challenges and be a Safespace 360 guide and take the best possible care of the individual human being.
Trainings can be closed for one organisation or company as well as individuals attending open cross-company trainings.
Module 4: Organisational Growth & Change
Get your herd together
Any change in an organisation can cause nervousness and it's a normal human response to question change. This module will get your Leaders dressed to effortlessly roll out any change and have their teams understand and step behind the new direction or change of road.
Equine assisted practical trainings will teach and develop a profound understanding of what makes a change or shift become a natural and welcomed new adventure.
Deepening the understanding of human behaviour and responses to change, and creating a personal perceptance of how to create the motivational factors that is key to making changes, or organisational restructuring a succes.
EFFICIENT & CREATIVE
“I was so annoyed with one task as we were doing it, and it was only after completing it I understood that what I was annoyed about was excatly intented to annoy me. It was briliant and reavealing of the weaknesses a team can have without knowing it.”
Chris Macdonald
- Chris Macdonald
Founding Herd Workshop
Let's work together!
The programs have a frame that allows us to adapt our programs around your team and specific 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.
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
Can we go further after the first workshop?
We specialize in creating customized events for teams and 1:1 Sessions
Reach out to know what we could offer you - or your team
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: