Teambuilding

When looking at trends in business education and training, there is a visible change in the way teams need to bond and express their creative expression. Teams are looking for cutting edge leadership programs that can develop new leadership competencies quickly, while boosting morale. It is no accident that some of the most successful leadership programs today include poetry, ropes courses, working with horses, and other expressive and experiential arts. Our historical method of educating people-talking to the team in the ‘conference room’- is quickly being replaced with outdoor, experiential learning environments. Why is this so?  Leadership experts know that people learn more quickly through experience. Developing a leader, manager, or an efficient staff of any kind, is no longer about throwing tips and techniques their way or sending them off to read a manual or wade through hours of group discussion.

Our unique approach incorporates physical practices with conceptual learning so that the competencies being developed actually become embodied rather than remaining good ideas forgotten in the heat of conflict. We still focus on the core business competencies of communication, coordination, accountability, honesty, focus, vision, leadership, trust, listening, team alignment, and performance. We know these skills relate directly to your company’s profitability, business process, team performance and executive development. We just approach them from a non-traditional panoramic perspective.

Our approach is so successful that other training institutes, coaches and consulting firms send their trainers to us. Over the years we have partnered with UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business Development, Institute for Womens Leadership, Genentech, Pfizer, Nike, Apple, HP, Cisco, Wells Fargo Bank, Visa Credit Card, PSI Seminars, and more.

We can provide short-term programs or more in-depth systemic change programs, on-site or off-site. A preliminary assessment establishes the goals of the program and guided practices that can be integrated at the individual, team and company level.

Accountability

The distinction between a manager and a leader is quickly fading. Today’s managers need to be innovative, social, and self-confident.  Effective managers are now required to think ‘outside the box’ and deal with constant change flexibly and boldly. They need to hold the vision of the company as if it is their own.  Other requirements of effective managers are emotional intelligence and sociability, because ultimately management is about managing relationships.  A good manager can listen to their teammates point of view, hold the line and at the same time foster individuality.

Becoming a like minded herd

Every individual has an innate desire to be of value and make a contribution.  Successful businesses understand the importance of their teams and their people being on purpose. On the individual level, the sense of working toward a meaningful goal is integral to feeling successful and satisfied at work.  Our corporate clients increasingly report that this is what employees care most about. Without a sense of meaning and purpose, employees quickly become begrudging and resentful, doing only what they have to do to get through the day.

A team that shares common goals, work ethics and values can communicate and coordinate far more effectively than a team that lacks interpersonal alignment. We help businesses transform their people into unified teams that support each individual so the group can thrive. If a business considers each individual an asset, then uniting these talents with a common philosophy and standards of success multiplies your company’s ability to make the changes to business strategy and process necessary that will keep you successful in today’s changing landscape.  We specialize in training teams to think together, act together, resolve conflict together, generate possibilities together, inspire each other, and maintain accountability together.

Listening to what is not spoken

Communication and coordination are fundamental to the workplace. With the rapid changes in technology, our strategies and practices for communicating and coordinating need to be refined on an ongoing basis.  These inter-relational skills include the linguistic actions of making effective requests, keeping promises, declaring interruptions in the flow of action, declaring completion and satisfaction, and making offers. These principles sound easy to do, but they can become quite complicated when you add in each individual’s unique approach and point of view.  Part of the complexity of these basic functions is that we are always communicating via non-verbal cues and body language.  When a person becomes more aware of these influences, they have more choice in how to steer conversations and become less reactive to other’s points of view.

Developing trust

Trust is fundamental to any interactive relationship.  When trust is not present, coordination and communication break down.  Backbiting, sabotage, avoidance, resentful employees, defensive managers, and bad gossip, are just a few of the negative consequences.  And we all know how hard it is to re-build trust once it has been broken.  Trust is an emotional skill that we create, build, maintain, and sustain.  The issue of trust, at first invisible, is actually one of the primary sources of either success or deterioration of your team and company.  Our team of SkyHorse staff and horses can quickly discern where trust is present or lacking, identifying areas to re-align with a common purpose. Allowing team members to process openly in a natural environment away from the office, helps teams re-connect and re-align in the team’s purpose while supporting team member’s individual goals and development.