“Be realistic …Learn to ride properly …Find a good trainer…Get yourself sufficiently fit …Try to ride, or have your horse ridden, regularly …
Go to as many seminars, conferences, clinics …discuss, argue, read, watch, do” Andrea Hessay (34)
For the last 20 years I have worked at the forefront of international Performance Management consultancy. Horses have been my passion but business has been my career.
It seems to me that there are some interesting parallels between the business manager and the dressage rider:
-Both are centres of control, communication and guidance.
-Both represent an additional “weight” that the other party (the horse or the organisation) has to “carry”.
-Both need to manage with understanding, clarity, tact, empathy and fairness to bring out the best in their partners and add value to the whole.
Just like the dressage rider, in order to succeed a business manager has to have:
-clear achievable goals
-strategies to achieve these goals
-an understanding of the complexity – the multitude of cause and effect relationships leading to achievement or failure
-a balanced holistic view
-the ability to tactically manage performance in the short-term with a watchful eye on sustainable long term results
-focus on the right things; continuous monitoring and intervention to improve when necessary with an understanding of the likely consequences of intervention
-flexibility
-an interest in continually learning about what makes the business tick and adapting techniques from other fields
-partners aligned to goals and values achieved through communication
-the ability to involve, motivate, reward and correct in an informed and balanced way.
Whether we are aiming to create a high performing organisation or a high performing dressage partnership the fundamentals are the same.