Is your team maximizing their potential?







Questions every manager should be asking about their team:

• Do you know your team well?
• Is your success being hindered by poor performance?
• Are your employees effective?
• Do they solve problems creatively and in a time efficient manner?
• Do they communicate well?
• Are they cooperative?
• Do they have “sticktuitiveness”?
• Do they take the smart risks needed to help your company succeed
• Do they resolve internal conflicts with positive outcomes
• Does your team react to new situations well?

If you answered no to any of these questions you could benefit from our corporate team building workshops. Your company’s success may be at risk.

We can help you rejuvenate creative energy, build cohesion amongst a new team or solve dysfunctional patterns of interaction among team members. Our corporate team building workshops provide a creative and fun approach that can be tailored to meet your organization’s goals.

We offer workshops using Equine Assisted Learning (EAL)
EAL is education using horses to help us learn new ways of thinking. Team building activities integrate the healing powers of the horse, skills of the facilitators and challenges and successes of the participants. We use dozens of activities to work towards a variety of goals tailored to your specific team. Activities are related to the larger ongoing issues within the day-to-day functioning of the team, promoting growth and change. Because our approach is activity oriented and includes interactions with a living, breathing and thinking equine, our horses may tell you more about your team members in five minutes than you could learn in a month or more. Whether you visit us once or on a regular basis, our workshops can help you to evaluate and improve your company’s future.

Why Use horses to evaluate and improve your company’s success?
Much like that of many corporations trying to maintain stability in the marketplace, horses are motivated by survival. Because horses are bigger than humans, respect happens naturally and boundaries and limits are clear. Horses offer immediate feedback about behavior and give non-verbal consequences. Through the feedback provided by the horse, participants also develop an understanding of how their behavior affects others. In many cases the horse acts as a mirror or magnifying lens, helping to focus on the issues clients bring to the session. In addition, like situations in the work place where employees are challenged by new and increasingly difficult duties, the use of horses places your team members in novel situations where they may be unsure of how to proceed to successfully complete a task.

Teamwork
Our workshops provide opportunities for more effective work relationships that can increase effectiveness and productivity among employees. The activities create opportunities where participants must work together to reach a common goal. Success in the business world depends on collaborative efforts, gaining insight into our styles of interaction, resolving conflicts enhancing verbal and nonverbal communication, developing leadership skills, and strengthening relationships within a non-threatening environment.

Communication
Like humans, horses are social animals, with complex communication patterns and a distinct hierarchy of roles. Horses offer immediate feedback about behavior, give non-verbal consequences, and offer second chances. Through the feedback provided by the horse participants develop an understanding of how their behavior and methods of communication affect others. Many times participants must learn how to communicate in new ways in order for the team to succeed at the prescribed activity.

Problem Solving
Participants use past experience, trial and error, reflection, generalization and metaphors to facilitate learning and creative problem solving. One activity we use is a “catch and halter” exercise. For an individual with horse experience this is typically a simple task. However, for those without horse experience, it can be quite difficult, require creative problem solving and can test a person’s communication skills, boundary setting, level of trust and frustration tolerance. In addition, achieving success on this task often means being able and willing to engage in healthy risk taking.

Perseverance
For many businesses success does not come easily. There are many barriers to success, requiring perseverance in the face of obstacles. Employees often become discouraged in the face of adversity and don’t use their full potential to overcome constraints, thereby reducing your company’s success. Our activities are geared toward developing strategies to overcome seemingly impossible barriers. For example, one activity we use is “life’s little obstacles”. The team must move the horse over an obstacle created with a small jump. The catch is they cannot talk, cannot touch the horse and must contend with other members of the horses herd which act as distractions. With this type of activity, perseverance can be evaluated and addressed.

Dr. Terri Jennings
Terri is a licensed psychologist (PY 6802). She has volunteered, worked and trained in the field of psychology for over 10 years. She received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Miami in 2002. Terri has worked in a variety of settings including gaining training and experience in experiential modes of therapy and team facilitation such as ropes courses to build cohesion among teams and psychodrama workshops. Terri is a Level One graduate of the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association.

As founder of Healing Hooves Psychotherapy, Inc., Terri provides equine facilitated psychotherapy and evaluation for children, adolescents and adults, corporate team building workshops and several on-going psycho-educational groups. To her clients and peers she brings a creative and enthusiastic approach while providing clinical services.

Samuel Hurley
Sam is a horse professional who for over 20 years has brought horses in touch with humans. He is a student and teacher of Natural Horsemanship and has touched the lives of hundreds of children and adults. His philosophy on teamwork and his awareness of how our individual personalities direct how we interact with animals and people provide him with an excellent vantage point for addressing corporate team building goals. As a co-owner of the Bar-B-Ranch, Sam strives to provide safe activities that are enjoyable to team participants and his horses.

How to Obtain Further Information
To obtain more information on our workshops please call or email Terri with any questions and to schedule an appointment to discuss your organization’s needs and goals. We look forward to hearing from you. In addition, Terri and Sam are available for demonstrations and presentations.

**Note: To protect participant confidentiality, all photos contain individuals who are not actual participants.